Thanksgiving is next Thursday, and your Mountain Times staff would like to say “Thanks.” We’ll save the actual “thank you” for next week, but felt our intentions should be clearly known. This uniquely American holiday involves not only, well, thanksgiving, but also expectation. The holiday preheats the mind’s oven with thoughts of family, friends and cranberry sauce – three nouns that seldom go together on any other occasion. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and creamed corn come along for the ride, also begging the question, “Why isn’t there a Thanksgiving themed restaurant?” While expectation plays a part, it’s often the unexpected that makes the holiday memorable. In that light, your Mountain Times staff will share some of our stranger, unexpected Thanksgiving experiences. No need to thank us.

Melanie Davis: Thanksgiving Tacos

The most unusual Thanksgiving experience I have had came during my sixth-grade year. My father was in the hospital an estimated two-hour drive from our home for an extended period of time.

¿Como se dice “turkey taco” en Español?

My mother, older sisters and I would make the drive frequently. We got to know the hospital staff and the employees of various fast food restaurants very well. That year, we drove up to the hospital after work, but missed having Thanksgiving dinner with Dad.

We spent a few hours with him, leaving at nearly 10 p.m. Late at night on a holiday made finding any dinner nearly impossible. We finally pulled into Taco Bell. Only the drive-through was open, so we ate tacos on the side of the road for Thanksgiving.

Although, it wasn’t a sit-down, turkey dinner, we were still thankful. We were together as a family. We spent the holiday with Dad, which was questionable a few months prior.

That year lead to my two most memorable holidays. Munching tacos, listening to the oldies station on Thanksgiving and the year my sister and I knocked a wall out of the living room without Mom’s permission.

Dad was released from the hospital just before Christmas. There was a half-wall separating two sections of the living room in our house. The Christmas tree had been decorated on the side of the wall away from the main living area in order to make room for a hospital bed in the living room.

Diana and I were at home one day, thinking about the fact that Dad couldn’t see it from the bed. Next thing you know, we have large hammers, taking down the wall. Fortunately, it wasn’t a main part of the structure. Mom came home from work to a partially torn down wall and a huge mess in living room. Once we explained the purpose behind the destruction, Mom just grabbed a hammer and started helping.

A lot came out of the holidays that year. The living room is much more open, and I still get a little nostalgic in a Taco Bell drive-through.

Scott Nicholson: Gobbler Sacrifice

The problem with memories is you can never remember them all.

That bird’s, like, totally fried.

So, Thanksgiving typically conjures up visions of different types of turkey. In fact, that’s about the only time I ever eat turkey. Although it is odd that some people, in an attempt to avoid offending those without gratitude of any kind, refer to the holiday as “Turkey Day” instead of “Thanksgiving,” under the delusion that paying homage to a flightless fowl somehow seems a little more offensive than actually acknowledging we all have our individual ways of expressing thanks for our good fortunes and blessings.

But my strangest holiday event was watching that critter get anointed with oil, as the carcass descended into a fryer vat and submerged in golden hot goodness. As I remember, it didn’t take long to cook what was probably a 15-pound bird, and the exterior was crunchy and the interior was moist. Pretty much like every other turkey I’ve ever tasted, except this one consumed several gallons of oil and left a big vat that would probably only be used once a year in the bizarre ritual of gobbler sacrifice as we gather around the fire and bow over to peer into the mystic ripples, lending our communion with full bellies, greasy faces, and minds dazed with the mysteries of tryptophan and cholesterol.

For which I gladly give thanks.

.

Frank Ruggiero: Thanksgiving on the Subcontinent

I’ll be spending Thanksgiving in India, an experience I can’t honestly say I’d considered this time last year.

Frank will be spending his Thanksgiving with the Indians.

Rotary International is sending me and four other Western North Carolinians there for a month as part of a group study exchange, and for that I am thankful. This will be my first Thanksgiving spent away from family, and though nothing can quite compensate, I must thank former Watauga Democrat sportswriter Bill Cain for noting an amusing coincidence that makes the occasion noteworthy and soon-to-be memorable. Weeks after learning about my trip, Bill sent a short e-mail, reading, “If I heard you right, you’ll be spending Thanksgiving there. With the Indians. I find endless amusement in that.”

As well he should. Amusing coincidence may be no substitute for family on Thanksgiving, but at least it’s something to smile about. Thanks, old chum.

Jeff Eason: Chili & Football Potluck Thanksgiving

If you replaced that turkey with a big pot of chili, those water glasses with bottles of Stroh’s, and those clean-cut people with a bunch of scruffy twenty-somethings, you’d start to have an image of our Thanksgiving.

When I was a young post-college bachelor in Chapel Hill, I was friends with a great number of single people of the same age. Each year, those of us who didn’t go home for Thanksgiving would gather at my house on Smith Level Road for the annual Chili and Football Potluck Thanksgiving. Many of these people worked in restaurants and you never knew what exotic leftovers they would bring to the party. Strangely, the only thing I recall that was never brought to the party is a turkey. One year, Greek food seemed to be all the rage, and my friend Susan made a giant pan of spanakopita (spinach pie with filo pastry).

It was during this time that I was working at the Cat’s Cradle, the historic rock and roll club in Chapel Hill (now in neighboring Carrboro). We usually had touring musicians who were playing at the Cradle stop by for a bowl of Thanksgiving chili. One year, Will Rigby of the dB’s dropped in for the chili, stayed for the beer, and promptly broke our screen door on his way out.

That was the way of those Thanksgivings some 20 odd years ago. They had a tendency of devolving into raucous parties about an hour before the Dallas Cowboys beat whoever they were beating that day. I mean, it wasn’t exactly a Norman Rockwell painting, but it sure beat watching the game by myself.