November Gran'ma Gertie

Howdy Ya’ll!

I’ve been busy as a bee at honey makin’ time gettin’ everything ready fer Thanksgivin’. It’s always been a real big thing at our house. All the family will be here. I don’t often get to see all my gran’young’uns at one time. There’s a big bunch of’em!

I reckon my family has always went all out fer Thanksgivin’. We always felt like we had a lot to give thanks fer, and most of the time, we may not have had much else, but we had food. It was usually that way with all us country folks. We always growed our own vegetables and raised our own meat. We may not have had a fancy store bought turkey, but you can bet there was a big hunk or two of meat on our table! It might be a smoked ham from one of our hogs, or two or three fine bakin’ hens of mama’s. We always had a big pan of cornbread dressin’ with gravy on the side, sweet potater casserole, fresh corn and any kind of peas or beans you could name, real mashed potaters made with real butter and real cream, and all kinds of cakes and pies, includin’ some of the best sweet potater pie you ever put in your mouth! A meal fit fer a king!

We always sat at the table, even if’n we had to extend it with saw horses and boards. Mama would always find a tablecloth big enough to cover. Most of the time, the little young’uns would eat at a separate table, being that they sometimes made a mess or spilt their tea. The food would spread all the way down the table, and usually into the kitchen. There would be gallons of iced tea put in wash tubs, and every kind of bread that we could make, from biscuits to fried corn bread patties put in baskets along the table. All kinds of jelly and preserves, and home made cane syrup was also there. If’n we were lucky, and enough money had been scared up, we had store bought cranberry sauce.

The smell comin’ from the kitchen early that mornin’ was enough to make your mouth water. By the time everything was finally done, most of us felt like our belly was meetin’ our back bone and we were ready to eat! When I was real little, it was sometimes awful hard to sit through the blessin’ without tryin’ to sneak a nibble.

Mama always made shore the young’uns was fed first. She said she wasn’t havin’ none of her young’uns eatin’ scraps! I’ve always felt the same way. Years ago, some people always fed the men folks first, the woman would then eat in the kitchen, and then the young’uns were fed from whatever was left. Not at our house! She knew how hungry us young’uns were. It had been a long time since breakfast, which was usually small because she had to get us all cleared out of the kitchen so she could finish up dinner. She most always had her cakes and pies done the mornin’ before, and the ham was just waitin’ in the smokehouse. She get jar after jar of her canned vegetables set out the night before. Everything was in the plannin’ and the timin’. Keep rememberin’ that all this was done on a woodstove! I’ve seen mama have to keep a fire goin’ in there for two or three days solid with all the cookin’ she done.

I know that we live in a differnt world today. Ever’body’s so busy all the time. Now, all a person has to do is go by their new big grocery store, pay thirty or forty dollars, and pick up a whole Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmin’s. While they’re there, they can pick up everything else ready made from the cakes and pies to tea in gallon milk jugs. It just don’t seem right. I still do all my own cooking. I don’t use instant nothin’! I don’t use my new miker’wave fer anything but a clock and what-not shelf. I’ve had to learn to use margarine instead of butter, canned milk instead of cream, and spices and stuff from a can instead of growed in our garden. I jest about burnt everything I cooked when Gran’pa bought me a gas burnin’ stove! So yes, I’ve had to learn to make do, too.

I reckon I shouldn’t gripe as long as the woman that picks up that store made dinner sits down and gives thanks with her family, and teaches the young’uns how to say the blessin’ and have good manners at the table.
Times are always a’changin’. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worst. At my age, sometimes it’s hard to tell. I jest hope we never change the things that really matter. Like our families, our young’uns, our friends and our religion. If’n we lose them, we ain’t got a lot left to hold on to. These things are more important than ever now, what with mamas and daddies both workin’, young’uns livin’ at the baby sitter, no time fer neighbors, and no time fer church goin’. Now I ain’t sayin’ I’m some preacher type, but I figer I owe my long years, my good sized family, my many friends, and all my blessin’s to some body. And I don’t mind givin’ thanks fer’em. Maybe we should all take a little time to do jest that. While I’m at it, I think I’ll pray for a perty day so the gran’young’uns can play outside!


‘Till next time,


Gran’ma Gertie