A Thanksgiving Memory

Thanksgiving is a time for reflection. A time for family, for traditions, for making new memories, and for reliving old ones. It seems that everyone has one holiday memory, or one special holiday that stands out in his memory above all others. This is the story of mine.

The year was 1990. I was in the Navy, attending my C school at Ft. Gordon, GA. Thanksgiving approached, and it seemed that everyone had somewhere to go but me. Oh, I could have flown home for the weekend, but I decided to wait and save my money to fly home for Christmas.

No fear, I was prepared. I'd gone to the commissary and bought a turkey and dressing TV dinner. I put on my most comfortable sweats, ignored my shoes, gathered up my current cross-stitch (my craft of choice at the time) project, and went upstairs to the second floor lounge to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Photo by Dhenningbw

I was happily stitching away, watching whatever came on before the parade started, when one of my instructors, an Army sargeant whose name I can't remember, walked into the lounge.

"Where is Chief Smith's room?" he asked me.

"Oh, he is in the hall on the other side of the landing--third door on the right," I answered and Sarge walked back out of the lounge. I returned to my cross stitch and my TV program, but a couple of minutes later, Sarge and Chief Smith walked back into the lounge.

"What are you doing?" Sarge inquired.

His tone made me a bit nervous, and thinking I must be in some kind of trouble, I shrank down in the chair just a bit, and rather hestitantly responded, "I'm getting ready to watch the parade."

"No, you're not." he said. "You're coming to my house."

"I'd need to change clothes," I said, attempting to put him off. I was wearing a pink sweatsuit. Oh, it was nice and comfy, but not exactly dinner dress.

"No, you don't," he responded. "You look fine."

"Ok," I said, but insisted that I at least needed to put some shoes on. He agreed to this, and once I'd put on my shoes, and put away my crafting, we all got into Sarge's van.

"I've got one more pickup to make," Sarge said, and he picked up Darren.

There were three students from the Australian Army who were going throught the class with us that term. The other two had taken the long weekend to drive to Memphis to see Graceland. They didn't like Darren so they didn't invite him to go with them. I don't know why they didn't like Darren. I thought he was a bit dorky, but he was really nice. I liked him well enough.

When we got to the Sarge's house, two or three other army guys were also there, in addition to Sarge's family. I found out later that he did that every year. He would go round up folks who had no where to go over the holiday and take them to his house for dinner and football.

I felt like I should be helping to get dinner ready, but Sarge's wife insisted that I was a guest and should go sit down and enjoy myself. Darren and I sat on the couch and watched the parade until time to eat.

When dinner was ready, Sarge called us all together, and explained to Darren what Thanksgiving was and why we celebrated. He then asked a blessing, and we began eating. Since there wasn't enough room around the table for everyone, Darren, Sarge's kids, and I ate in the living room in front of the TV. And watched football. Dallas Cowboys of course. Actually, Detroit first, then Dallas.

Photo by Ben Nelson

Now, Darren, being from Australia, had no idea what was going on, so while we were watching, I was trying to explain the game to him. This was an education to me. I grew up watching football. The game has never not been a part of my life. I was still young and pretty selfish at the time, and it never occurred to me that someone would not know what a down was and why you punted the ball when you got 4 of them. Or why this guy was tackled, but that guy was sacked. Or how these guys lived through the game. Darren was constantly amazed by this fact. That they lived through the game. "WOW!" he would exclaim. "I can't believe he walked away from that!" or "He got back up! I was waiting for the ambulance to come and get him!"

What I found to be extremely ironic about the whole situation was that I, the only female in the room, was the one doing the explaining. Apparently, I did a pretty good job because none of the men felt the need to correct me.

All too soon, it was time to head back to the barracks. Sarge dropped me off, I retrieved my crafting project and headed up to the third deck lounge--where there were actually people, and finished watching the game. Dallas won, and that is the only game I can honestly say that I saw Troy Aikman play in. Then the day was over, and another Thanksgiving had passed into history.

What made the day so special to me? It wasn't the food, though that was excellent. It wasn't the company, though that was outstanding as well. It wasn't that Dallas won the ball game, though that is always something to be happy about. No, what made the day so special is that someone saw that I was alone and said, "Come be a part of my family."

And that's something to be thankful for.