By Jeannie House
What a beautiful Thanksgiving Day, all the family were together, our children and their families. My adorable four-year old twin granddaughters, Becky and Jenny, one with brown hair and eyes and one with blonde hair and blue eyes, were dressed in their Sunday best. They were all excited about naming our turkey (as tradition of our family it is to let the youngest person name the turkey). First they had named it Gertrude, but I told them it was a boy turkey, so they started with all kinds of boy names, finally ending with Max. As they patted and rubbed the turkey in the sink, I started telling them this tall tale about how I had gotten our turkey.
While pointing out the back door, I said, “I saw a turkey out there on the hill. I walked along the path and over the hill. I looked and looked, and walked and walked, finally I spotted the turkey pecking at the ground for food. I was very quiet so he wouldn’t hear me. I snuck around some bushes, and lucky for me, I had worn a big old coat. I took the coat off, and with one big leap, I threw the coat over him. I brought him home, rung his neck, and plucked his feathers.
Now these girls are not dumb. They both reacted with non-belief expressions and said, almost together, “Hunt-aaa, no you didn’t, Grandma!”
We had a little laugh, and I went on cooking dinner.
The turkey cooking smelled so good. My daughters were helping me to get the dinner on the table, when the twins came running to me. They were breathless and wide-eyed, “Look Grandma, we found one of the turkey’s feathers.” Jenny said, while Becky stood there with her mouth open. Smiling, as I turned around to work on dinner, I said, “Oh, I guess I missed that one when I was cleaning up the feathers.” What believers I had now!!!
This is one of my favorite stories to tell at Thanksgiving.
The feather was from when I had been “Faux Finishing” some furniture and our cat, Buster, liked to play with them and must have carried it off.