Thanksgiving Mornings
Had special meaning
For me
In my childhood
My father and I rose early
After breakfast of shredded wheat
With sliced bananas
Topped with thick cream
From the neck
Of a glass quart bottle
Of Mr. Gardner’s
Unpasteurized unhomogenized milk
Delivered by him
in his Willis van
To our doorstep
That morning
Yesterday hand squeezed
By him and his wife
From the teats of their Guernseys
We departed in our faded
Maroon ‘41 Chevrolet
Two door sedan
For our annual Thanksgiving deliveries
We drove Route 8 south
Out of Christiansburg
Toward Riner
Past our farm at mile four
Turning right on the Childress Road
Blacktop without centerline
To visit the farms
Of my father’s law clients
Their families were gathered
Busy as beavers
At their annual holiday task
Of food harvest
For the winter ahead
Thanksgiving was
In our Blueridge Mountain county
Hog Killing Day
So chosen for practical reasons
Family hands gathered
Cold enough
For flies to be gone
But not so cold
As to be uncomfortable
Shoats grown to
The right size
Smoke would be rising
From a hot wood fire in the yard
Heating 50-gallon barrels of water
Into which just killed gutted shoats
Would soon to be dipped
For scalding
To soften hair to be scraped
From the whitened skin
Of the shoats
They’d raised from piglets
Stout boards laid
Atop sawhorses
Served as tables
To hold
The scalded shoats
For slicing into
Primal cuts
Head, shoulder, ham, loin
Ribs, bacon, belly, feet
Into tubs went chitterlings
To be washed
Liver and heart
For I knew not what
The primal cuts
Would be sliced and trimmed
Into lesser cuts
Tenderloins, picnics, roasts, chops
And fat would be trimmed
For lard or mixed with lean
To be ground for sausage
My father would hand
The husband or wife
A paper bag filled
With smaller bags
Of spices for sausage
Sage, salt, pepper red and black
Oregano, cayenne, thyme, garlic
Others to make his secret blend
He would shake
Hands goodby
We would drive on
To the next farm
On our list
In a few days
Packages of sausage meat
Would appear at
My father’s law office
Why did my father
Give spices to farmers
Thanksgiving mornings
The first time in 1937?
To signal he forgave them
For voting against him
For Clerk of Court in 1936
Forcing him
To hang out his shingle
He had read law
Under a judge
After his appointment as Clerk
To fill out the term
Of a clerk who died in office in 1931
He passed the bar in 1934
He would practice law
And farm
Til his death in 1954
When I was fifteen
Repeating his spice gifts
Every Thanksgiving morning