Thanksgiving 1967

      I remember it something like this. My Dad the only driver family then had picked my brother and sister up from school cause they got out earlier. He checked me out about an hour early from Gaffney High, my freshman year on a Tuesday and we challenged the six hour drive to Rome Ga.

   I don't remember if we still had to go through Greenville on 29. I don't think so as with a few breaks around Commerce Ga we got to Atlanta where we went north on 75 just a little but had to go over to Marietta about where the Krystal was and get on 441. My Dad was always frazzled by then, Atlanta traffic and station wagon full of family and he challenged Atlanta traffic instead of going with the flow. We get a pack of Krystals. 441 traffic was always bad and we still had the Big Chicken to navigate in the dark, later I learned to be famous cause that was about where Leo Frank was lynched in 1915 and the ancestors of the Blue Blood Big Rocker Brumbee family helped orchestrate the whole deal.

   And then later I tried to Understand Nelson Price religious and political bent bordering on the Birch Society and the takeover of Shorter College, but I digress.

    We'd get to Nanny and Papa's about 8 pm if we were lucky. Dad would be shot but Momma would hit second wind to reinforce the kitchen patrol with Nanny for Thursday to come.

    Paul Simmons and Aunt Kat would come up on Thursday morn and Aunt Nita and her branch would be there for dinner or come in later that evening. On a great together Uncle Fremont would find a way to get down from DC and that was the best Rook games with a foursome always going with my Dad and Uncle Free and Papa and Paul Simmons and me and Tim Wood itching to get in.

    Uncle Paul sold Hush Puppy shoes from the Merchandise Mart downtown Atlanta but traveled all over. Got a new Cadillac every three years or so for that big trunk to haul all those shoes around and a tax write off. Kept Aunt Kat dressed in style.

    Waitin on Thanksgiving Dinner I'd often be sittin on the front screen porch with Papa, WD Shorty Fox. When he'd come up the little drive off Dykes Creek on Morrison Campground Road he'd say, Here comes Paul Simmons and that big Fine Car.

   Papa would work me and my brother on Wed and Thursday morning. Cutting firewood, serious if he rigged up the big saw behind his tractor.  There are a couple pictures, my skinny brother about 8 years old and me shooting a bee bee gun, and Nathan and some friends up by the haystack but that coulda been taken in 71. I was thin, pants too big in the waste and my windbreaker from Sears in Spartanburg or the Rome Pants factory downtown where Mr. DeDaubalier was still giving my Dad some discounts from working there in the 40s after he left the meat market at the Jitney Jungle.

    Nanny put the food on the table. Liked to be in charge of everything. Momma helped with the pecan and chocolate pies. Giblet gravy was perfect, and seemed like always enough dressin. Everybody packed it away.

  Depending on the Wood schedule we'd usually leave Friday Morn and go over and see Momma's brother and sister in Collinsville, Alabama a leisurely jaunt of about an hour 20 minutes from five miles east of Rome. Most times through Cedar Bluff on the north route but occasionally through Cave Spring. Any option we were in Centre Alabama in 40 minutes with a wondrous view of the lake to mystify in the dark. More on that aspect of the trip in a few days.

    Everybody was alive then. Nobody started dying with that round of family for another 12 years and then it was one every two years including my Mother in 1988.

   Looking forward to seeing my Brothers three brand new grandsons in Upstate SC. Will tell them some of the stories if I get quality time. Some of their parents are already coming around to Rook including Marsha's one and only Andrew who graduates from High School in May. I think he and Brinkley or Billy Lewis are gonna come to Collinsville, Alabama if I am still there in three years. We'll ride around and talk about some things.