Episode Six: Thanksgiving
The Wagoner’s Lad, fourth verse ---
Your horses are hungry, go feed them some hay
Come sit down here by me as long as you stay
My horses ain’t hungry, they won’t eat your hay
So farewell you well, darlin’, I’ll be on my way
Ezra: Well, it’s November, and the wife’s itchin’ to put up the bird feeder…[chuckle]…oh, I know, you’re probably all --- Jesus, not another chapter on bird feeders [chuckle]…ah, yeah, I suppose a lot of you have your own bird feeders, so you know how this goes. Uh, the birds, they drop ten times more feed than they eat, they make a mess. Always a nice big pile of bird seed there beneath the feeder. Um, and that, that sort of works out in a way, because, uh, once that, once that pile builds up, the squirrels stop hoggin’ the feeder and they, they just forage there on the ground, so…that’s a plus. Uh, but the minus, and it’s a big one, is these turkeys start showin’ up…wild turkeys, supposedly…[chuckle]…they don’t look so wild to me, but anyway, they start showin’ up, um, maybe just three or four of ‘em at first, but then the word gets out, and there’ll be a dozen or more show up at a time. And they just take over. They, the deck, the railing, the yard, and there’s turkey shit everywhere. So every fall, every winter, me and the turkeys have our own little war. [Sound of pickup passing by.] Um…I like to, to sit at the dining room table in the morning, there’s a nice eastern view there, and I can see ‘em comin’ out of the timber. They, uh, they cross the road, and they head straight for the feeder, so I, I go out and I bushwhack ‘em, and send ‘em on their way. ‘Course I, I can’t be sittin’ there at, at the dining room table all the time. I do sit there a lot, but not all the time, and so that’s, when I’m not there, that’s when the turkeys, get their beachhead, and start droppin’ the poop. So I’ve, uh, I’ve come up with a little routine on how to, how to deal with this, because, because I’ve learned, I’ve learned that if, uh, you know, if I scare ‘em off, repeatedly, consistently, every, every time they show up, and I keep doin’ this for maybe two or three hours, that’ll get us, uh, maybe a two- or three-day break. Uh, now needless to say this, this cramps my style a bit, but, but I am, I’m not about to let those turkey bastards take over, so I hang in there. And one morning they were, they were so relentless I had to, I had to cancel my doctor’s appointment. Had to keep my post.
Uh, so this is how I do it, if, uh, if any of you are interested, this is how I keep the turkeys at bay. Uh, I keep a bunch of empty gallon, uh, milk jugs handy, and, uh, and then I let the turkeys settle in, and then I bomb ’em good with those jugs. They’re not heavy enough to, these jugs, they’re not heavy enough to do any damage but they, they make a lotta noise, and when, when they, they hit the deck or the railing, uh, the turkeys don’t like that. So they run for it. Or they fly into the trees…[chuckle]…it’s kinda fun…so like I said, usually, if I can, I can keep up a steady bombardment like that for two or three hours, they’ll leave us alone for, uh, a few days. Now o’course things can get a little, uh, tense around the house when this is goin’ on. Uh, the wife doesn’t like the racket, and, uh, and when I cancelled my doctor’s appointment that one time, whoa…yeah…well…[chuckle]…I had to ride that one out…’cause those turkeys are not havin’ my deck…no.
Uh, yeah, so Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving in this house…has gotten very complicated all of a sudden. Used to be simple enough, uh, the kids, grandchildren, they all showed up, we’d have a nice time, eat too much…but, uhm this year, all of a sudden, who goes where for Thanksgiving is a major controversy. Now I’m not gonna get into the details, ‘cause, uh, that’s, um…but I am gonna, I am gonna have to set this up, just a little, so, uh…so our son and daughter, they married siblings. So our kids married into the same family, right? Which was kinda fun, for a while, uh, but then the novelty wore off, I suppose you could say. But anyway, we worked things out, kept everybody happy, you know, but, but now, this year all the sudden, this Thanksgiving, the wife and I, we’re gonna be on our own. And I’m not okay with that. I am not okay with that. So I decided --- and this was just a couple of days ago --- I decided what I was gonna do was, uh, I was gonna put a sign out here on the road sayin’ there’s a couple o’ folks here available for Thanksgiving dinner. “Available for Thanksgiving dinner. Have sides, will travel.” That was gonna be my sign. But o’course you know the wife she says, “You are not gonna do that,” and I said, “Why not? Maybe the, uh, the in-laws’ll get the message.” And so she tells me to stop tryin’ to stir up trouble, and besides, she says, she kind o’, she kind o’ likes the idea of goin’ out for Thanksgiving dinner. And I said I am not gonna make an appearance at a local restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner.
What we used to do was --- well, early on, this was early on when we got the whole bunch together, both families, for the holidays. But then it, you know, it got to be where we would, uh, we’d just split the difference. Half Thanksgiving Day with us, half with the in-laws, and same way for Christmas, so…so we did that for a few years, and it was, uh, it was okay, not ideal, you know, but it was okay. But this year, the kids have decided it‘s too stressful, too much drivin’ back and forth, so they’ve decided what they’re gonna do is spend Thanksgiving with the in-laws, and then they’ll still do both families for Christmas. So…you see the problem here, this, this uh, this, uh, pie has four slices total, and the wife and I are bein’ served one slice only. In the name of stress. So…now personally, I’m not, I’m not convinced, I’m not convinced that stress, is the real problem here. Well, it might be part of it, but there’s somethin’ more goin’ on here. And I, and I’ve tried pointin’ this out, before, to both our kids, more than once, so I’m not sayin’ anything to you all that I wouldn’t say to them, ‘cause I have, I already have, I’ve said it. My wife and I, neither one of us went to college, okay? I mean, not really, I, I, I did get my A.D., way back when but, that was just vocational training, basically. But the in-laws, not just the kids, but the parents, too, they all went to college, and they all, they all have college degrees. Couple of ‘em have more than one. Now I am not gonna sit here and blame somebody --- anybody! --- for furtherin’ their education, okay? Both of our kids have degrees, and we are very, very proud of that. But there’s somethin’…and I’ve seen this, I’ve seen it happen with other families, things start to, uh, things start to drift…and I can see how, how my kids are driftin’…closer to…to where apparently things aren’t so stressful. And, well, here’s what I have to say about that. These are stressful times. There’s stress everywhere. So deal with it. Sometimes family gatherings can get stressful. Deal with it. Everybody gets their piece of the pie on Thanksgiving, or I am puttin’ up my sign.
The Wagoner’s Lad, third verse ---
Your parents don’t like me because I am poor
They say I’m not worthy of entering your door
I work for my living, my money’s my own
And if they don’t like me, they can leave me alone
