Potatoes On The Ceiling

I was ten-years old when my mother invited our widowed neighbor Miss Mary Burford to join us for Thanksgiving. An Ocala icon, Miss Mary’s acceptance of the invitation was a big deal for my mother.

Thanksgiving arrived and the house was in perfect condition, as, dressed in our best, were my father, brother and I. After a glass of sherry, my father was dispatched to bring the turkey to the table. His grand entrance was ruined when he stumbled and the turkey slid off the platter and onto the floor.

Even at ten-years of age, I recognized this was a major disaster. The room was silent until my mother said, “Don’t worry. Jack, pick up the turkey and we’ll serve the other bird.” My father placed the turkey back on the platter and accompanied by my mother, retreated to the kitchen. In a few minutes they reappeared with a beautifully plated turkey. Later I learned there was only one turkey and it had been dusted off, placed back on the platter and served.

My wife Terri’s first Thanksgiving after moving to Florida was her first away from her family. Our family’s traditional menu never changed: turkey, green beans, sweet potatoes, rice, dressing and dessert. We ignored Terri’s pleas for mashed potatoes, her family’s traditional side dish, until she started crying. Then realizing how homesick she was, my brother rushed to the store, purchased a bag of potatoes and assigned Terri the task of preparing them.

Feverishly she prepared the potatoes, placed them in a bowl, added a pound of butter, a cup of milk and started searching for an electric mixer. She responded to my comment that Southerners used potato mashers, that it wasn’t her problem that we didn’t know how to properly prepare potatoes: she needed a mixer.

After locating the mixer, Terri turned it on to high speed and plunged the whirling beaters into the potatoes. There were spuds on the walls, floor and even the ceiling; the mixer had flung potatoes all over the kitchen. Suddenly my brother started laughing: not just laughing but rolling on the floor, uncontrollable, howling. At that moment, Terri and my brother became close friends and we had something else to be thankful about.

A couple of years later, my brother, invited all his acquaintances who didn’t have Thanksgiving plans to join our celebration. The same year, Terri and I had invited her sister, brother-in-law and their two children to join us. I told them the temperature would be in the 70 to 80 degree range and be sure to bring shorts because we would take our boat on a tour of Crystal River.

Thanksgiving morning the temperature was in the upper 30’s, with rain, a howling wind and a forecast for the weather to remain the same throughout the day. Forty people—including Terri’s family who hadn’t packed so much as a sweater—had accepted the invitation for lunch. With the wind and rain, the plan had been to serve lunch on the front porch was out of the question; so we moved the celebration to the garage.

God love my brother, he was into the Thanksgiving punch and not much help; so it was up to me to find enough chairs. With the rental stores closed, I turned to our undertaker friend John “Digger” Hiers. John had plenty of folding chairs, and was glad to lend them to us but had no way to deliver them—until you have done it, you don’t know how many trips in a four-door car it takes to retrieve forty folding chairs. We celebrated that memorable Thanksgiving sitting on chairs marked “Hiers Funeral Home,” in a garage, with a storm howling outside.

Thanksgiving is the day that is set aside for us to reflect upon the gifts we have been freely given. My wishes for all: a bountiful feast, a wonderful time with family and friends and time to think about blessings. Happy Thanksgiving!

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