The Third Navy Thanksgiving Memory

[Anti M]

I've done two already, this is yet one more ... bumping it up for the holiday.

I was in C school, down at Fort Gordon, near Augusta, Georgia. Very strange being in the small Navy Det on an Army base! We were a tight bunch of sailors, even liked the sailors we didn't like. Which makes no sense, but you have to have been there to get that.

One of the gals, a good friend of mine in the same class, was a Georgia native. Her mom and dad had a farm between Augusta and Atlanta. This wasn't a big farm, something like twenty acres, they had a green house and cattle and chickens and a few garden crops. Lot of pine trees too, those straight up ones we don't grow in the West.

She invited me to Thanksgiving Dinner at her home, along with the sailor she was dating and a guy I knew from my class in Great Lakes. We kept adding on sailors until we had quite the crew headed for the farm. Her mom didn't mind, she even cooked two turkeys and a ham or two.

What a meal! I'm not used to Southern Cooking, but this lady could cook up a storm! I did pass on the collard greens, but her fried okra was the finest I've ever tasted, never before and never since then have I met fried okra as good as hers. There was cornbread and biscuits and the most wonderful gravy. I couldn't count the pies, there were three types of yams, two types of potatoes, and she did something delicious to the corn I can't describe ... and so much more I can't remember it all. We were stuffed! And she'd made cookies for us to take back to base the next morning.

Thank You every mom who has opened her home and her kitchen and her heart to sailors who are away from home. You ROCK!

And a funny story too. With everyone so busy, I offered to feed the chickens. I'd been to the house before and knew where the feed was, and how much to give them. I'd just never done it by myself before! I get into the chicken coop through the barn ... those were some dang big chickens! White and taller than my knees! Hungry too, and pecking at my legs. I fed them as quick as I could and went to leave the barn. I opened the door and there was the black bull. He wasn't big for a bull, no taller than my shoulder, but he was sturdy. And hungry. And so were all the cows behind him. They'd seen me cross the field to feed the chickens and had walked over to the door while I was inside. Now I couldn't get out of the barn. I tried shouting to the house, but no one inside could hear me. I kept pushing the bull, but he just looked at me, like why aren't you rolling out the hay? I wasn't afraid of him so much, he was pretty gentle, but I was scared to walk through the cows. Them gals were mean! I felt like I was trapped for hours, but it was only ten or fifteen minutes; my friend's brother and dad came out to get firewood and saw me. They fed the cows so I had a chance to get back up to the house. Last time I fed chickens! At least they didn't laugh too hard! The family and my friends, not the cows and the chickens. Although I suspect they were laughing ....

[Anti M]

Thanks!

[Denise - browns57]

I have loved reading all your Thanksgiving memories.  I hope my son ends up having some good ones to share.  He spent his first Thanksgiving in A School.  This year will be spent on deployment.  Last year he spent Christmas on the ship by himself.  Hoping that he will spend this years Christmas with someones family.  We will be looking forward to seeing him in January.

 

[BunkerQB]

M, click on options, then "edit this post" and take the extra lines out between paragraphs. Indent to show new paragraph. Just a suggestion to give your blog a more compact look.