With Thanksgiving coming up I started thinking of Thanksgiving gatherings from the past. At some point I remember we started as a family spending this holiday by piling into a vehicle and making a trip to Ohio and my Uncle Russ and Aunt Carole's farm. We would often arrive late at night after the long drive and after a few hellos and long time no see's we would be shown to a bed and fall asleep. I loved visiting their farm it was much bigger than ours and they had a two story farm house and large barns and a dairy barn were they milked the cows. We would sleep in rooms on the second floor and the rooms were chilly but the beds had heavy covers that once you snuggled in you were very warm. It would not take me long to fall asleep and with the chill in the air and the warm covers I would sleep like a rock.
The next day we would awake early to stirring in the kitchen and the smell of breakfast being made wafting up through the heating grates in the floor. It was always a proper farm breakfast with eggs, bacon, toast, etc. and then everyone would head out to do chores. I never saw the work at their farm as chores for some reason it was more fun than the work we did at home. My older cousin Donny always would let me help him even though I am sure I was more of a hindrance than a help. He was like the big brother I wish I had and would rough house with me until I would get to overzealous and he would have to show me who was boss and let me know it was time to chill.
My Uncle Russ was this big guy with broad shoulders who liked to joke and pull pranks on people sometimes pushing buttons and making ya mad but I liked him and respected him just the same. My Aunt Carol was a farm woman she could cook up a storm and then go out and slaughter a pig or do the farm work as good or better than any man. She had a cackling laugh but not high pitched lower toned and could be very caring but also very stern.
They lived in an area of Ohio that had many Amish families and as a kid it intrigued me how the Amish lived and was lucky enough to become friends with one of the families. One Amish kid who was close to my age was named Toby and when he was not working on the farm we would take of on long walks climb trees etc. Toby spoke German and very little English but we seemed to communicate just fine. I was able to learn so much about Amish life and as a kid thought their way of life was so cool. I had thought at one time I would like to become Amish but the downfall for me would be the strict religious aspect. Not saying it is a bad thing just not in line with my beliefs.
For Thanksgiving there would be a huge table filled with all kinds of things to eat the usual things like mashed potatoes and beans,corn,stuffing, and turkey but there was always some wild game included in the feast. Rabbit,Squirrel,Venison, etc. They would always have me try it and tell me it taste just like chicken. My thought was if it taste like chicken then why the hell not just eat chicken. I was never and still not crazy about venison and not because it was Bambi I just do not like the taste. Rabbit is OK and Squirrel is kind of more work than it is worth but if it was all i had to eat I would. I do think those meals I ate there made me less afraid to try different things as I got older. I have eaten alligator,snake,and even chitlins which although gross in thought tasted pretty good. I have even eaten insects and other things that sound gross but tasted pretty good. I do not mind trying food items if I am told what I am eating but I hate for anyone to feed me something and after I am done eating inform me what it was and my Aunt Carol was always good for that. She meant no harm but she did not understand we had to eat what was on our plate that was my Dads rule so even if I hated it I would choke it down regardless. My Dads Dad taught me to use my mashed potatoes to cover the taste of things I did not like. I hated peas and my Grandpa knew this so he showed me how to cover them in mashed potatoes and swallow fast so I did not have to taste them. He taught me so many things of how to do as I was told but do it in a way that made me feel I had control.
My Aunt Carol kept a box of toys in the living room mostly older toys my Cousins played with at my age and when ever I could I would dig them out. There was a plane made of metal that was my favorite the doors opened and the landing gear worked and the wings folded up. I would spend hours playing with those toys and looked forward to any chance I had to dig them out.
My favorite thing to do at the farm was working in the Dairy barn and watching the milking machines pumping the milk from the cows and watching it go up in the tube that led to the huge holding tank. A large tanker truck would come and pump all that milk out and that was interesting to see for me as a kid. The cows seemed to know what order to come in the barn and always a leader cow who was like the queen bee of the heard. Some cows would come in and not be milked and when I asked why I was told they had an infection or some other reason they could not be milked. I was in total awe of the whole operation and never missed a chance to hang out with who ever was doing the milking when it came time to milk.
Some times other cousins would be there for Thanksgiving but most of the time it was just my Dad Me and my Sisters so I was kind of on my own being that my sisters were all older than me. My Mom stayed at home to watch the animals on our small farm and I think also to have some alone time for herself sneaky Mom real sneaky LOL. When the other Cousins were there I would have someone to ride horses with and go off exploring in the woods and farm fields and often getting into some sort of trouble . As I got older we visited less and less and in my teen years we stopped going down to visit all together. There is not a Thanksgiving that goes by that I do not have memories of those times spent on that farm.
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