Thanksgiving

To allay our pining for home and for our Irish-Catholic families, we had 21 people to Thanksgiving. With four JVs from Hays, four from Billings, four representatives from the Cheyenne home, Cassie’s parents, and one JV girlfriend, we got all the chaos we needed. As people arrived Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the house got lively and the chefs got rolling. While the birds cooked on Thursday morning, we headed out to the football field for the Turkey Bowl, Ashland-style. If you’ve read our previous posts, you might associate “Ashland-style” with any number of things; on this day, it meant lining up in four inches of powder on a brilliantly blue, twenty degree day to play six on nine. “The Ashland” plays six on nine because, per our competition-starved males, even teams are for chickens. After rallying a bewildered Cassandra into the battle cry, “Give me Three-Men-Down or give me Death!” the two ripped off their shirts, chest-bumped, pumped the crowd and sprinted back to the line to dig in across from the five girls on Hays-Billings line. Hays-Billings promptly blitzed.
Despite the discrepancy, our JVC spirit triumphed and we concluded in a 4-4 tie. Highlights from the match included Jo-face diving Bobby Orr style for the interception, Hays-Billings repulsing a leaping Stephanie as she tried to go over the top for the TD and mean tackles from Danielle “Fighting Irish” and Rachel “Bird-Butcher” Forte.

With Rachel’s hit, we thought Matt’d kicked the bucket, but he picked himself up, shook his head, muttered something about the size of the fight in the dog, and ran straight into the goal post. Everyone watched in horror. Except Molly. When snowballs couldn’t wake him, or cattle whoops, or Pup licking his face, we knew it was bad and everyone fell silent (even Molly.) Eyes dropped downcast, someone placed a glove on his chest and we turned, slowly, to head back home.
Then suddenly, as if in a dream, Susan threw open the kitchen window, where Joe’s neglected turkey was on fire; we watched, mesmerized as the smoke snaked up and down, along the ground, swirled around our ankles and curled under Matt’s nose. For a moment nothing happened and we held our breath. Then, just like that, he sniffed, sat up, staggered once, and made straight for the open window. Amazed and astonished, we followed him to the house. We followed him to the table, where he sat in front of his name tag, staring straight ahead and making no sound but the methodical tap tap tap of knife and fork until dinner was served.
Anyway, that was the business about Thanksgiving, with the Turkey Bowl and Rachel, but we are trying not to dwell on it. Ever since we finished the leftovers of the turkey and Matt has stopped sniffing around the kitchen, he doesn’t seem to remember anything. So when we talk about Thanksgiving, we usually point to Susan’s harvest loaf, the king crab Cassie’s parents brought or the vat of 18 mashed potatoes; we like to remember Susan’s homemade tablecloth, six year old Jasmine kidnapping Cassie’s camera or the epic games of mafia. Yes, it was a quiet, uneventful holiday in Ashland.