Nesco Roaster

We were guests at a welcoming home on Thanksgiving Day, but Sunday will see Thanksgiving guests in our home.  So Friday morning I went to the barn and got the Nesco roaster.  I brought it in, polished it, and set it up, ready to receive the turkey.

I mentioned to BBBH that the appliance was vintage 1949.  She seemed a bit incredulous, so I typed "1949 nesco roaster" into the search engine, and behold!

Our roaster is identical to the one pictured, sans cabinet, which was an optional extra.  It is being pressed into its sixty-fifth year of service in giving Thanksgiving the bird.

If you bigify the picture, you may see that the National Enamel and Stamping Company asserts that this is their Golden Jubilee edition of the roaster.  Think about that.  These things have evidently been around since Eve was fixing dinner for Adam and Cain.  Excellent appliance, well-made, and still cooking!

Our roaster.

Thanksgiving in the Bowl #T

Did I tell you about the time we had but one bird and thirty-five people for Thanksgiving?  Well, your Aunt Grace decide we gonna be thankful whether we had anythin' or not.  She didn't miss hardly a fambly member, sayin' to 'em all, "We gonna have Thanksgiving over to our place this year.  Jep and me has been blessed, and we'd be disappointed you didn't join us."  Now in the manner of the times, I guess we had been blessed.  We was still alive, and we managed to scrape somethin' together each day to keep our souls connected to the bodies.

It was Dust Bowl days, doncha know, and nobody had much a nothin'.  We was much better off 'n many around us, 'cause we had saved a little coin which I had failed to put in the bank back in '29.  Always was a bit leery them suited guys with they green visors.  So anyway, we weren't total broke, and I gone up to Canon where I was able to get a few things, couple hunnert weight a cracked corn, hunnert pound a cornmeal, pinto beans, enough for the whole town.  So it looked like beans and cornbread for some time to come.  I'ma thinkin' you was maybe three, four years old at the time, 'cause your Mama and Daddy come on down for Thanksgivin'.

Anyways, when I left Canon to come on home, I stopped by Arly's over to Florence and wha'd'ye reckon?  Ol' Arly had hisself half-dozen turkeys he'd been nursin' along.  Scrawny they was, too, eatin' what they could scratch up.  Arly give me one a them birds, insisted I have it, so I tuk hit.  Well, I bring that bird home, and glory be! I have all that cracked corn and two months 'til Thanksgiving.  Well, son, I kept that bird pretty close, pen him up in the ol' tool shed.  Yessir.  Fed him good and give him more water than I tuk myself.  Well, talk about surprises!  When people start gatherin' in our house on that Thursday mornin', the aroma like to knock 'em down, hit smell so great.  Some a the fambly had had little enough, and then some, when it come to meat in Lord only knows when.

Well, your Aunt Grace had kept the winders sheeted over purty good, and the sugar and flour were kept wrapped tightly and inside half-gallon Mason jars.  Couldn't set out a sugar bowl, nor even keep it in a cabinet, 'cause even with a lid on hit, the dust would just natural get inside.  Gritty sugar ain't fit'n to use.  So Grace had been bustlin' around two days gettin' fixed for dinner on Thanksgivin'.  Now she only invited people to come, she never ask them to bring anything, but they all come with they hands full, and those ladies were bringin' the best they had.  Why Marcella Dean, you know Marcella, her'n Larry brought they six kids along, but Marcella make the best "apple" pie you can imagine from nothin' more'n pie crust, sody crackers, and vinegar and sugar.  I don't rightly know how she done it.

Anyway, the feast was on, and Grace would have it no other way but that she would make a little speech afore we et.  And she lay it on.  She said as how times had been bad for a long time, and some folk was gettin' discouraged.  Why the whole Palmer tribe, she says, done lit out for Cally-forny, and if we was all givin' up, wouldn't be nothin' here no more but tumble-down shacks and rattlesnakes.  And wouldn't you know, like right on cue in a stage play or somethin', Fred Baker speaks up and says, "Let the snakes have 'er.  She ain't no good no more no how."

And Grace let him have it.  "That," she says, "is just what I'ma talkin' 'bout.  This is Thanksgivin', and y'all need to be thankful.  Be thankful that we are still a makin' it.  Be thankful that we have loved ones who care about us and would give the shirt off'n they back to he'p ary one of us.  Y'all buckle in, keep the faith, he'p one another and pray, I mean pray like you believe the promises of God, and pray some more, day and night.  We will be okay.  Now Darryl, please to offer thanks to the Good Lord over these vittles, and we'll tuck into 'em!"

So right then and there the prayer meetin' start, but hit warn't so drawed out thet the food get cold!  No sir, we done justice to that spread, let me tell you.  And that bird with the fixin's fed them thirty-five people plum easy.  And the prayin' continue, and behole, the very next Fall the drought breaks and the rains come.  And then, well we are still here, hain't we?

© 2013 David W. Lacy

Be Ye Thankful

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the US of A.  Now, everyday should be a day of thanksgiving, for scripture tells us,

" In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."  (I Thessalonians 5:18)

Yet it is meet and right that we have set aside a specific Day of Thanksgiving, for it is a reminder to us that we should live with an attitude of thanksgiving.

And besides, there is football!

Happy Thanksgiving.  May all your days be richly blessed!

And do stop by here again on Thanksgiving Day.  I have a feeling Uncle Jep is fixin' to spin us a yarn of Thanksgiving on the High Plains.

Geosynchronous Orbit

twinkle, twinkle in the sky

22000 miles from my eye

pretty lights of red and green

from my front door can be seen

on a night so cold and clear

satellite, why are you here?

so your xm won’t fade away

as you listen all the day

and night.

Through the eye of the point-and-shoot camera.

 Blowup shows colors of the lights.

How difficult is it to hold the camera still at 26x?

I need a tripod.  And a more sophisticated camera.

This geosynchronous satellite is visible from our front door whenever the night sky is clear.  To the naked eye its position varies very little from night to night.  I believe this particular object is situated at 85.0 degrees west longitude. For a scientific explanation of this, you will need to look elsewhere.

November 24

I did not know her as a girl, but Ellie gave me the last seventeen years of her life as my wife, my friend, my companion.


She departed this Earthly life fifteen years ago today.

Ellie

Guess Who?

What very powerful man, third largest property owner in New York City, being imprisoned, escaped and worked as a common seaman on a Spanish ship?

Courtship in the Valley #T

Did I tell you about the time Milo Cain come over from Rocky Ford to court your Cousin Jean? Well, it were melon harvest 'n Milo come on down with a load a them melons in his ol' Dodge truck.  Now, he was hopin' to peddle them thangs along the way, an' he got all the way to Lamar, an' there he struck out-- couldn't get shed a more'n half 'n 'em.  So he drove on over here with a gob lot a them left in the truck. Milo tried to get Tom Rankin to take 'em off his hands.  Tom tuk but a dozen, so then Milo hit up Slocum over to the hardware, and Fred says, "Sure.  Stack 'em up right there in front a the store and put a 'Free' sign on 'em."

Well, if'n he were gonna have the truck free to gallivant around in, I mean he was hopin' to take Jean to Syracuse for a show, and well, you know.  So he stacked 'em and give 'em away.  And Rankin were some mad.  I mean he had a whole four bits in the dozen he got, and now they's worthless.  Now Tom weren't one to let someone beat him outa hard cash and get away with it.  He'd think a somethin'.

Anyways, the Fates or whatsoever is in charge a Tom Rankin's fortunes was smilin', snickerin' prolly, 'cause who should blow into town while ol' Milo was a washin' and cleanin' of his truck but Theodore Larkin from back home.  Now, it was knowed far and wide that Theodore was a "catch" but so far no one had catch him.  And where should he park that Lincoln V-12 but smack afront a Tom's store.  Well, Teddy Boy strolled in the front door, give the bell hangin' atop it a extry jingle, and with that big ol' grin he most allus wore says, "Oh, Tommy Boy, guess who's gracin' this burg and this lowly den of commerce with his stellar presence?  Why, indeedy, it is I, Theodore James Larkin, just in from the glorious Cumberlands, and here to dazzle this village for, oh, who knows how long?"

Tom mought not a been thrilled with Ted's advertisin' a hisself, but he instantly see a opportunity.  He sidles over to that handsome lad, slips a arm 'round his shoulder and says, "You are a sight for sore eyes!  Hey, Teddy, old pal, do you recollect that Jean Larson, come up from the Clinch?  Why, she's a beauty if'n I ever see one, an' she is to home right this instant.  Lonely?  I reckon yearnin' is whut she is."

So Milo's truck was all shiny and clean with no place to go.  'Ceptin' home.

© 2013 David W. Lacy

A Boy's Life in the Palace

In 2 Samuel chapter three and continued in chapter five, we find a listing of the names of the sons of David.  The count runs to seventeen, not counting children by concubines to whom he was not married. The last name on the list is Eliphalet.  Perhaps David knew at the birth of this child that it would be his last, and thus the name which means “God delivers me”  takes on meaning.  I would have been relieved, too, to see the last of a string of offspring such as that. Other than his place in this list, which also appears in the Chronicles, there is no scriptural mention of Eliphalet.

Picture this.  The child, say four years of age, is wandering around the palace attempting to entertain himself when he turns quickly and runs into the hall leading to the throne room.  And wham! He runs smack into the knees of his regal parent who is headed to a conference with his ministers and generals.  The King grasps the boy by the shoulders and says, “Whose little rugger are you?”

“I am the King’s son, Sire.”

“Oh, really.  I lose track.  What is your name?”

“Eliphalet, by your leave, Sire.”

“Oh.  Oh-ho!  Run along then.  Daddy has things to do.”

So it is that the child runs to his mother’s oda and excitedly bursts into the room.  “Mama,” he cries, “I just talked to Abba in the great hall!”

“And did he talk to you?” his mother enquired.

“Oh, yes, Mama.  He asked me my name!”

“Very well, then, Eliph.  You should go at once to your chamber and record this on your calendar, for it is indeed a memorable day, and very likely the last time your father shall ever speak to you.”

Stature of King David by Nicholas Cordier