Remember "Christmas Night the Quarters," by Irwin Russell? A saga of happy days "before war on the old plantation" includes Noah's Ark and the invention of the banjo, and nary a trace of misery or discontent.
Well, it's now Thanksgiving Night in the quarters out here 234 Wetherbee, and we are remembering Miss Beatrice Fulwiler's quote of Billie Wynn's quote from Sir James Barrie's quote, we quote: -"Thank God for memory, which gives us roses in December," end quote,
Dove has a western going on the rented bedroom TV set, therefore isn't interested in matching memories with Old Stuff, so we'll have to take it on our readers, who, by this time just might be expecting flashbacks anyhow.
So, we'll think of Thanksgivings way back yonder on South Broadway, when Mother and Hebe (for Mrs. Dr. J.D.) Smythe would attend services at St. James Episcopal Church, services conducted by The Rev. Philip Davidson, in the little clapboard building which stood where the Commercial National Bank stands today.
Miss Mary Walker was St. James's organist, with Squire Herbert Eustis and perhaps Levert Stockdale singing in the choir, and it's just possible that the sexton was manning the pump which supplied the air for the organ itself.
Then there was the Thanksgiving when "Mammy" (for Annie Redmon, the Crumps beloved cook) swigged too much of the sherry and brandy that had been set aside for the Christmas fruitcakes, and Mother stepped into the kitchen just in time to stop "Mammy" from chopping the beautifully browned-turkey into hash. And chopping is the word here too, because Mammy had laid the carving knife aside, and was brandishing Old Stuffs scout ax in the general direction of turkey proper.
Another Thanksgiving memory concerns our blessed neighbor, Mrs. John A. (for "Miss Maggie") Cannon, who fixed biscuit-and-fried-ham deals for us that were far tastier than turkey meat in our book anyhow.
And a few years later, there was the fire-making and water-boiling contest on Finlay Field (present site of the telephone building and Kroger Store), for us Boy Scouts, with Galla Paxton winning the leather-bound Scout Manual which was the first prize, and us "also-rans" James Cowan, Ernest Butler (Mrs. Hood's son), and Old Stuff getting second-class scout watch-fobs (from Scoutmaster Ben Hatch) for consolation.
Well, when you have a watch fob, a watch becomes the next order of business, so we saved our weekly earnings (derived from toting in the coal and kindling) to buy a dollar watch on which to latch our fob. And in the course of time, we moved a notch, to own a two-dollar Ingersoll that was our pride and joy in our senior year at high school.
So much for memories of ye goode olde days. And now, coming on down to modern times, recall a rather recent Thanksgiving morning when another Ernest Buller (DDS) look Ross Hodge and Bobby Blackmon rabbit-hunting along Number 9 Canal-ditch- bank. A year or so later, when Fletcher Low, Tony Formigoni and Old Stuff met along The blacktop thoroughfare called Abide Airport Road, Fletcher, who was on his way back home from attending early Mass at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, said everybody ought to go to church and thank God for the wonderful crops that had been made that year in the Delta.
So another Thanksgiving Day has come,' and is just before going, and everyone can again be thankful for bountiful ideal weather for same. Also for Thursday's rain which offset the danger of fires in fields and forests, leastways in the immediate future.
And speaking of thankfulness, we are sure that Ruth, the cook-and-maid was thankful to get most of the day off, and all because Katie and Richard Eskrigge had us old folks in for dinner.
