Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving is my FAVORITE holiday!!! Growing up we always went to Mamaw Outlaw's and had enough food to feed an army ( a large kitchen and dining room full to be exact.) My Smith grandparents would come there often too. There would be around 90 people there, and the routine was as follows: Show up, say the blessing followed by what I thought was WAY too sentimental of a speech from someone or multiple people about family and how blessed we were to have each other (as an adult it means WAY more to me now, and I am one of those sentimental talkers), stand in line, have a competition to see who could pile their plate the highest (Daddy usually won), have a discussion over "if there aren't any chicken and dumplins left when I get there, somebody's gonna die"), eat, watch football, fall asleep on the floor (surrounded by at least 30 others, mostly loud snoring uncles) wake up, eat again, MAYBE play a little football or run around on the farm, go back for desert, pack enough leftovers to last until Christmas, go home, have a snack and fall into a sugar coma!! Occasionally there would be some sort of singing, fashion show of old clothes found upstairs that belonged to the aunts, OH, there was always an art project to frame and put on the wall, and there was one year where my cousin Eddie and I took a video camera out on the farm and made a completely embarrassing and funny as hell video!! I miss that!! I miss Mamaw and her love of flowers and rocks and all things in nature, her out of tune singing of "Tennessee Waltz" and "Old Rugged Cross" and how she never said an unkind word. I miss seeing how she and Uncle Richard would joke with each other. I miss climbing the Magnolia tree with them watching from the ground. I miss seeing her red car go by our house at what I thought was really fast. I miss Nannie an her practical jokes, cooking, laughter, and kisses. I miss how she would laugh so hard she would wet her pants, and how that was always Daddy's goal. I miss her rubbing my hair, taking me fishing, and making crickets "spit tobacco" before putting them on the hook to be eaten by brim. I miss her wearing panties on her head so her hairdo from Patsy would last all week. I miss how soft her skin was and how I would fall asleep rubbing her ear or arm. She had the best arms!! They were soft and jiggly. I miss their smells: a mixture of makeup, "older lady perfume", and powder. They each had a special smell. I miss that. I miss home: the cotton, the way the air smelled so fresh (unless the crop duster had just sprayed chemicals), the way you could see for miles, fireflies and bats in the summer, Foshe', deer and raccoons and rabbits and fox, and how the plowed soil felt so cool and soft. I do miss my grandfathers too. Papaw died when I was 10, so my main memories of him are of riding horses and how he let me put a baby chicken on the kitchen table. I can't believe he let me do that. I would die if someone did that to my table. Grandad was a quiet man, but he loved taking us fishing, for rides in the jeep, or on the tractor. He'd take us riding around the catfish ponds, and we always had a pole ready for some fishing. He would take us out to see the new baby cows. He tried to teach me to drive a stick shift, but I was only 6 and very short. He was very patient with me. He was fun, then he became a homebody. We made him mad one Thanksgiving because we decided to go to "the boat" (gambling boat) for Thanksgiving dinner instead of cooking and cleaning, plus we could play a few slots. He was MAD! He didn't go. He stayed home all alone. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the boat and it was TERRIBLE. I'm not picky, but it tasted like spoiled green beans, and nasty stuff!! We laughed so hard! We were so determined not to cook that ONE year, and the food wasn't even fit to eat. He hated the boat. He thought Nannie was "addicted to the nickle slot machines." I miss that. See, I have become that sentimental aunt. Sorry I wrote so much. It's going to be a tough holiday season for me since I won't be able to go home this year. I miss home. Love, Shannon