The night before Thanksgiving

Turkey on the New Jersey Turnpike — Tammy the Turnpike Turkey, captured on the 19th after spending two months hanging around Exit 14B (by Newark Airport)

(There are lots of turkeys on the NJ Tpke as well as everywhere else.)

I am sooooo glad I am not in a car or airplane trying to get from here to there on this crazy night. For nine years I would slog my way up the NJ Tpke from Princeton to Connecticut to visit my parents. My first year I was stupid enough to leave during rush hour and paid dearly for it. Subsequent years I would go to the usual 5.30 evening Holy Eucharist with laying on of hands and anointing, have something to eat and hit the road about 8.30. I'd get to my parents' about the same time but with far less stress. (I did learn the hard way one Christmas Eve that the rest areas do close at night.)

Then there was the year (1988) that my parents and I flew to Denver for my niece's baptism/Thanksgiving. After that awful trip, my father vowed he would never ever again fly on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I agree.

I am always wistful on Thanksgiving — I miss my father's parents at whose house we always gathered for Thanksgiving dinner. I stumbled across a whole set of photographs I took of their house a couple of years before my grandmother (a widow by then) sold it. It's weird to see where the furniture, rugs and wall hangings ended up. So there's always that twinge that accompanies the day... I guess when there is a family tradition as strong as that one, it is hard ever to find a replacement. [Later I will scan a photo of the house.]