A Thanksgiving poem . . .

Once upon a time, Mom gave me a box of all (and I do mean all - every spelling test, Bible test, etc.) my childhood school papers, grade-school yearbooks, and other frighteningly memorable paraphernalia.

Lucky me, she goofed and put in something that actually belonged to Chris. It was a collection of Thanksgiving poems his class wrote when he was at Pellston. The date was November 1979. It was compiled by the fourth, fifth and sixth grade classes. I don't know which class he was in at the time - he was about 11 at the time - so sixth grade?

I figure he doesn't contribute enough to this family blog, so I better help him out. Thanks, Chris for making this so easy . . . and so funny.

So, without further ado . . .

A Thanksgiving poem
by Christopher R. Hawk
age 11

Thanksgiving morning
When everyone's snoring
It's very boring.

But Mom's fixing the turkey
And minds still murkey.

The smell of the bird
Makes me feel absurd.

So I'm in the mood
For lots of food.

The company's here
With a great big deer.

We say our good-bye
And we gave them some pies.

Here's to you, Chris, to "feeling absurd" this Thanksgiving. Love you!

Oh, and who's bringing the deer this year?

Stinking Thanksgiving

The turkey was wonderful.

All the food was fantastic. (We had homemade noodles! It's tradition!)

The fellowship was fun. (Mom beat Ryan at Farkle!)

But at the end of the day . . . Thanksgiving really stunk.

I mean that in the most literal and loving way. It really smelled bad.

As the story goes, we had eaten our dinner already (thankfully). The guys were in the garage doing a project for dad, the women were cleaning the kitchen, and the kids were playing "quietly". Too quietly.

Owen comes up from the basement and declares to Grandma that he has dumped water on the stairway. Nope, it wasn't water. It was Liquid Fence.

I didn't know what Liquid Fence was either, but I believe I am now educated in the product well enough to share with you a very vivid explanation. Liquid Fence is a chemical that can be poured outside (key word) around lot lines and garden boundaries to keep animals from invading your territory. The secret to Liquid Fence is that it smells REALLY, REALLY bad. How bad? Pick the two worst smells you shouldn't ever combine - and you have Liquid Fence. Yeah, and it is now on Mom and Dad's basement stairs. We bleached and we gagged and still it smells.

And so the memory of Thanksgiving lingers for Mom and Dad. It will be a while before they forget this one, unfortunately. Mom says it ranks up there with the holiday where Kristen fell down the basement stairs, Brice locked himself into the bedroom, and all the kids drank the water from the fish tank. I think there must be a better way to make memories. Seriously, what happened to making craft or playing a game? I'll check the library - certainly someone has written a book about it. We'll all need to read it before Christmas.

In the end it was a fun day. We all left laughing (although I think Mom was crying ;0) and apparently Christmas is being held at the Powers' house.

Here are some pictures of the happy memories of the day . . . .

Grandma and Jonny

Amazing Aaron building with Legos.
Okay, he was just playing, but doesn't he look smart?

Cousins
Also spelled T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Did you see that?

The big kids table. Lots of laughing. Not a whole lot of eating.

Jonny

Crackers and cousins. Who knew they could be this fun?

Mikayla and Jonny "wrestling"