Our Small Thanksgiving

I get raised eyebrows ever time I tell folks one Hopper tradition for Thanksgiving.  It does resemble the ones when I was at home.  Momma would spend all day cooking for us.  Daddy loved to eat momma’s cooking.  In fact, everyone loved momma’s cooking except momma.

Vulcan Materials, the place where daddy worked as a heavy equipment mechanic, gave all of its employees a big Butterball turkey for Thanksgiving and a ham for Christmas.  Momma would bake that turkey, fix turkey and dressing, cakes, pies, and every other kind of dish imaginable for Thanksgiving dinner.  We celebrated being thankful.  Dad and mom taught us the importance of being thankful for what God had blessed us.

Momma’s table was so full that there was hardly room for us to put our plates but we managed.  Dad always set at the head of the table.  Momma, when she sat, was next to daddy and my sister sat next to her.  My two brothers sat to daddy’s left and I sat on the other end opposite dad.

The first rule was to say the blessing.  Dad required the blessing even though most of our lives dad did not know the Lord.  Once the blessing was said, the feast was on.  Daddy had certain rules for eating.  They were Hopper rules and not “Dear Heloise” rule of etiquette. 

One rule was if someone asked for a dish, that dish went directly to the requestee.  If someone intercepted the dish and removed any amount of contents, dad would make the guilty party remove the food then proceed to lecture on the rules of passing the plate.  Another important rule was never rake food from a bowl or dish.  You must dip the food.

When one item of food remained, such as a biscuit, you had to ask, “Does anyone want that last biscuit?”  If there were no takers, then you got it.  If for some reason someone they wanted it, dad would ask, “How many have you had?”  If you had what he considered plenty, the one asking for it would get it.

The biggest no-no of Hopper rules for feasting was if you dipped it, you had better eat it.  Daddy constantly warned that our eyes better not be bigger than our bellies.  He never cared how much you ate, but you had better eat what you got.  In fact, when one of us did not want to eat dad would remind momma, “Honey they will eat when they’re hungry.”

I miss those days of sitting around the table and passing the bowls filled with momma’s cooking.  Most meals at the house remain on the stove and we dip from pots and pans onto our plates and go to the table.  My sister Diane calls it “feeding the dogs” style of eating. I have heard that it will suppress one from eating too much by having to go back.  All I can say about that is I eat more because walking back creates more room for more food.  I was much thinner when we passed food around the table.  Mrs. Wilkes in Savannah, Georgia serves her guests like momma did and people think it is quaint and fancy dining.

I had the privilege of eating at a nice restaurant operated by folks from New Orleans.  They asked if we wanted to dine by passing the bowls, of course, I did and I loved every minute.  It was good to say, “Pass the creamed taters.”

For a change, one Hopper Thanksgiving  I will start a fire of hickory wood.  When the coals are just right, I grilled vegetables, squash, green tomatoes, onions, and yellow bell peppers.  I threw on some potatoes wrapped in foil and grilled rib-eye steaks.  That was back before COVID and I could afford them.

I remind people when they say “No turkey” that you can get turkey anywhere.  It is good to start new traditions.  This year Lisa and I decided to have a small “traditional” Thanksgiving.  We had the turkey, the dressing, and all the other stuff.  It was just the two of us.  I was thankful she was there and she was thankful I was there.  We sure had a lot of food to eat till Christmas.

 

From our home to yours, have a blessed Thanksgiving.

 

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

 

To The Entitled

I will never forget the first time I realized that a turkey sacrificed his life for me to have turkey and dressing.  I remember the episode well.  Smoke swirled in the fall air and coolness surrounded you like a cold cloth wrapped around your head when running a fever. 

We were playing near the fig trees and the ash dump at Grandpaw and Grandmoe’s underneath an overcast sky.  Grandpaw and daddy busied themselves sharpening an axe after splittin’ kinlin’ for a fire burning around the wash pot.  They were boiling water in anticipation of scaldin’ a turkey.  My cousins and I were very familiar with scalding hogs, but the turkey scaldin’ was a first.

It seems as though Grandpaw had raised a few turkeys.  At one time people raised turkeys just as they did chickens.  Turkeys are ugly fowls.  It is hard to believe that some of our founding fathers wanted the turkey to be our national bird instead of the eagle.  Can you imagine what kind of respect the United States would have received had the turkey been on our national bird? 

You do realize that there would have been no turkey and dressing had the turkey been our symbol of power and strength.  Heck, most of the male citizens of Alabama would never have passed through the rite of passage into manhood by going turkey hunting.  There would be no beards displayed on walls of many homes, no turkey feet would proudly exhibited in the den, nor would there be any tail feathers proudly flaunted in the living room where tall tales of calling a gobbler would be shared.

The industry of producing, marketing, and using a turkey caller would not exist if the turkey had been our national bird.  I cannot imagine what are forefathers were thinking when they even suggested the turkey as a national emblem of strength and power.

As I reflect on that morning at Grandpaw’s, I wonder if Grandmoe would had Grandpaw and daddy “ringin’ chickin necks” instead of “choppin’ oft” turkey heads.  When I think about what momma said on many occasions, Grandpaw and Grandmoe might have had possum instead. 

Momma said they ate possum on several occasions.  She said they would “catch em”, “cage em,” and “clean em” out by feeding them “Irish and sweet tater peelin’s.”  For those that don’t know it, possums are scavengers that do not know how to get out of the road when a vehicle approaches. 

Daddy used to make fun of momma saying that before he married her the only thing momma had eaten was chickens and possums.  Daddy did not have it much better.  He ate chitterlings, mountain oysters, and pig feet with pickled collard greens.  I bet some of you are getting hungry and cannot want for the Thanksgiving dinner. 

I guess knowing all these things helped my family to appreciate Thanksgiving dinners.  Gathering around momma’s table was a feast fit for kings.  There was joy around the table.  Usually daddy got a turkey from his work and we grew corn, peas, butter beans, okra, sweet potatoes, pigs, chickens, and such which momma would transform into some of the finest meals.  We were thankful.  Looking back, I realize we were not a thankful then as I am now. 

I look back at that special moment in time as Grandpaw and daddy were about to kill “Ole Tom” and think how things have changed and how we as a nation have digressed from “thank full” to “thank less.”  Sometimes I think that I would enjoy being that small boy witnessing the first time a turkey gave his all for us to eat.  Reminiscing about a simpler time creates a longing to share special times today.  The Lord may be reminding me, and maybe you, that we grow in times of adversity, times of economical downturns, and times of hurting.

At thanksgiving dinner, momma would remind us that God loved us so much and we needed to thank Him for we had so much and many people did not.  We were poor, but we had neighbors who had less than we did.  I realize this is truer today than years ago when momma said it.

So will I compass thine altar, O Lord:  That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works (Psalm 26:6b-7 KJV).

 

A Family Tradition

Family traditions are important reminders of who we are and where we have been in the journey we call life.  Thanksgiving and Christmas for the Hopper family while I was growing up were original.  My dad’s family did not have “get-togethers” and mom’s family did “get-together” but there was some inequity.  Some family members were not welcome.

Mama had four sisters and a brother, which with the exception of one sister, “married up.”  The Hoppers and the “I will not mention their name” were larger families and much lower on the totem pole.  We were lucky if we got Christmas presents so that meant none under the tree when others opened theirs.  Since we were not welcome, our cousins would not open their presents until we went home, we stayed home and started our own traditions.

I remember mamma standing in the kitchen cooking her world family chicken and dressing.  I see the steam rising from the pots of boiling chicken and broth, backbone and turnip greens, bacon and purple hull peas, potatoes, bacon and butter beans, creamed corn, and brown sugar and yams.  In the oven would be a pork roast donated from one of our hogs.  She did it for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We did not need presents, but when momma would sacrifice and order us clothes from Spiegel catalog, we had a wonderful surprise on usually a frosty morning.

Momma would remind us how poor baby Jesus was and the joy that Joseph and Mary had when the Magi brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Daddy was not as optimistic as momma.  He was so bad we named him Scrooge.  He was really not a Scrooge, but he did not decorate the tree or do any of the other things associated with the Thanksgiving and Christmas season.  He was usually on layoff, which was a depressing time.  The thing that upset him the most was Christmas.  He would tell momma that Christmas was about the birth of Jesus and not Christmas presents.  The amazing thing about that was dad was not a Christian until my brothers, sister, and I were grownup with children of our own.  He had a fine Christian mother, Granny Hopper, which taught him Christian principles.

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:11 KJV).

Momma and daddy are with the Lord now, but the Hopper brothers and sisters do meet every year for Christmas.  Yes, the menu is pretty much the same.  I started my own Thanksgiving.  I miss momma’s world-famous chicken and dressing, but that Angus ribeye with grilled vegetables, baked potato, and my famous cherry pie ain’t bad.

I hope y’all have a great Thanksgiving and y’all have a great Christmas.

It Is Square

 Several years ago, I helped my daughter Angela remodel her kitchen.  One of the alterations was to situate a refrigerator that is too large, to fit in the present opening of the cabinets.  Being an old cabinetmaker in years past, I agreed to help her.

She had a couple of options.  One was to remove the two-door cabinet above the frig, and take a couple inches off each side of bottom cabinets to keep uniformity. 

The other option was a bit simpler, but she would lose cabinet space.  This course of action involved removing a section of the cabinet over to the next door by eliminating a top door and bottom door and their shelves.

My son-in-law said that it was impossible to remove the top and bottom sections since it meant removing two doors and their shelves.  His logical thought and reasoning was you could not do it due to its construction.  My response was someone built it originally. 

Angela said, “Daddy can do it.”  I knew that I could, but I was concerned about making it look like the cabinets were made that way.

My youngest son Aaron gave me this wonderful little saw for Christmas, so I knew I had the perfect tool to help me. Since I know how cabinets are built, had the right tool, I started by using a cordless drill to remove the double door cabinet above the frig opening.  Square-headed screws held this section of the cabinet in place.  Screws are much better to construct and deconstruct projects.  I also removed the sides of the cabinets that I was about to cut.  The sides were nailed together with small staples that I removed with a screwdriver and pliers.

When Angela finally arrived, I was well into to what Handyman Magazine calls a DIY (do it yourself) project.  When disconnecting the cabinets over the frig, one side dropped a tad.  I placed a level on the shelf, got it level, and anchored it with some ‘dry wall” screws.  I keep several different sizes of dry wall screws for projects.  Angela said that it did not look level.  She inherited her leveling ability from my momma.

Having done carpenter work most of my life, I know to measure twice and cut once.  I said I know good and well it was level because I put the level on it.  She said it was leaning.  I put the level on it and showed her that it was level.  I know leveling.

The house that I grew up in was anything but level and square.  Daddy placed some large rocks on the property and commenced to build our house on top of them.  He did like old timers did when constructing a house or should I say shanty.

When I was a senior in high school, we did some remodeling on the old shanty.  We added two bedrooms and replaced the old leaking tin roof with some fancy modern black shingles, replaced the asbestos siding with brick, and the outside toilet with a inside jam up bonafided indoor bathroom.

We did not have much trouble with the two new bedrooms because they were built on a good foundation.  The rest of the shanty was another matter.

When we started putting new paneling over sheetrock, we thought we were uptown.  Years later we asked why did we put that ugly paneling over good sheetrock?  I claim temporary insanity.

In building, you must start level, plumb, and square.  Daddy and I took our time to make sure the first piece of coconut colored paneling was plumb.  Momma said it was leaning.  Dad put a four-foot level on it and it was plumb.  Momma won out, and dad and I struggled to hang paneling.  It was a genuine mess.  Momma had a good eye no doubt, but she was no level or plumb line.

Momma and Angela remind me of something that a pastor friend, Denny Couturie`, said in a sermon at Sunny South Baptist Church.  Denny said that people disregard what the Bible says in favor of what they believe.  Authority and speaking with authority come from Scripture, referencing Titus 2:11-15:  For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.  These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee (KJV).

God knows best.  I had a deacon tell me one time that it did not matter what the Bible said, he was going to do what he thought was right.  To say the least, he had no authority.  Opinions may have some merit in certain arenas, but the Word of God is the plumb line by which all life is measured.

As Angela and I completed the modification, she questioned something being square on the bottom cabinets when I measured and scribed a line on the bottom shelf before making a cut.  I assured her that it was indeed square.  Being a “Doubting Thomas” because I did not use a square, I told her to get the square and check it.  It was square.  Of course, she wanted to know I knew it was square.  I said if you measure the same distance from something that is square, the line will be consistent and continue to be square.  I told her it was called geometry and parallel lines.  When Angela and I finished the cabinets, it was hard to tell the modification. 

 

Veterans Were Babies Once

November means a time of thanks.  We have Thanksgiving Day and Veteran’s Day remembering the bounty of a great God and nation and the bravery of men and women who have served for the right to celebrate these events.

Veteran’s Day brings many memories to mind.  I remember a Veteran’s Day service at one of the churches I served.  The minister of music and I decided to purchase the music and flags of our Armed Forces.  During the worship service men and women from each of the branches of the military marched into the sanctuary following the flag under which they hade served.  There were those in the church who were active in the Army Reserve, the National Guard, and the Air Force.  Someone represented each of the branches of our Armed Forces.

As I contemplated on these men and women, I thought about all those who served and the ones that paid the ultimate sacrifice.  I mulled over the thoughts their parents may have had when each one of soldiers was a baby.  Did their parents envision that small baby maturing into soldier fighting, or perhaps dying in a foreign land, for our nation?

How does that compare to Christian soldiers?  The Bible teaches Christian maturity to fight against evil.  Dr. S.O. Hawkins writes, “Perhaps the worst problem in many churches is a host of spiritual infants who have never grown in their faith because they have been fed a diet of pop psychology and seeker sociology instead of New Testament theology. . . It is impossible to grow up as a Christian apart from the Word of God.”

If a baby does not mature, something is wrong.  Babies, as cute as they are and as much as we love them, want their own way.  They want what they want when they want it.  They are lazy, lie around, and they mesh up a lot without cleaning up the mess.  They do not pick up clothes or wash them.

Babies do not take up with personalities, and cannot look beyond their own personality.  A mass murderer can goo-goo and ga-ga and a baby will smile.  Babies can care less about big events happening around them.  Divorces, deaths, heartaches, and any number of things happen as a baby is down on the floor playing with a ball.  Babies are easily upset when do not get what they want.

We see all of these signs in babes (immature believers) in Christ.  They are not interested in what others think, they have no spirit of submission, and they are not active in outreach or other ministries of the church.  Immature believers want to be entertained, they play while big things are happening, and they are more concerned about feeding time at noon than the transformation of people from darkness into the light of salvation.

This Veteran’s Day when you see those aged warriors of freedom and right, remember that they were once babies that had to have everything need cared by someone who wanted them to grow from children to adults.  That should be a challenge for believers to mature for spiritual battle.

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:  Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:  That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:11-16 KJV).

 

Thanks Dad

In one of my favorite pictures of my dad, he is leaning against a two by four board holding up the front porch.  Dad did not like to have his picture taken.  On this occasion, his brother was down from Illinois.  Dad had been hauling logs that day and had the smell of pine rosin and sweat mingled with the aroma of Camel cigarette smoke and grease on him.

In this picture, dad is tanned and muscled.  He was very strong from working with pulpwood and logs most of his life.  I, along with my brothers and sister, could not wait for dad to come home in the evenings.  We would spend many evenings lying on an old quit in the front yard just talking about life and looking at the heavens.

I remember that I could not wait to get old enough to go to work in the woods with him.  Back then, pulpwood was measured.  I carried a measuring stick and marked the fallen pine timber as dad cut.  He had a large, and heavy, McCulloch chainsaw.  As a ten-year-old, the chainsaw was very heavy.  It was all I could do to crank it.  When I could not, daddy would give the cord a yank and fire it up.  Ever once in a while, he let me run the chainsaw.  Most dads won’t let a ten-year-old run a chainsaw!  I had the best dad.

When hauling logs, dad allowed me guide the mule that pulled the logs back to the truck.  I was not sure I could do it, but dad said the mule knew what to do once I hooked the tongs to the log.  It was fascinating that the mule could find his way back to the truck.  I would jump on the log and balance myself as the log rolled, twisted, and turned going up and down the hills and hollers back to the truck.  It was even more fun to watch the side loading arms of the log truck throw the logs on the truck.  I don’t think momma would have let me go with daddy if she had known how dangerous it was.

I remember helping dad fall a giant oak.  He bated the tree and I helped to push.  Suddenly as the giant tree started to fall, a gush of wind caught the oak and pushed it back toward us.  Daddy yelled, “Run son!”

As a boy, I wanted to spend as much time with dad as I could.  Dad was what folks back home call a “jackleg mechanic.”  When you are poor and have nothing but junk, you spend a lot of time repairing.  Most of my time was spent under the hood or underneath cars, tractors, and trucks.  This is something I enjoy doing today.  It is therapeutic and nostalgic.

For some reason, dad went most places by himself.  On particular day, he was going to Montevallo to pick up his check.  Momma asked if I wanted to go.  I think she wanted me to spy on dad and see what he was doing.  I knew I had to keep my lips sealed if there was to be another expedition with dad.  I was so excited and could not wait to ride in our log truck with him.

As I went out the door, I closed the door on my fingers.  Doing the natural thing, I yanked them from the closed door, leaving on of my fingernails between the door and the door sill.  Blood was flying and the finger was throbbing.  I was not going to miss an opportunity to spend time with dad.  I dare not cried.  He would have made me stay home.  I remember sitting alone for what seemed an eternity with my finger throbbing with the beating of my heart.  Dad wanted me to be tough.

Momma taught me how to drive, but daddy let me drive.  Dad went from logging to working in a rock plant.  Our family car became his work vehicle.  As usual, it needed repair another rear axle.  As we started to Bessemer, Alabama to find a replacement, dad said, “You drive.”  I was twelve. 

On a long hill near Montevallo, I remember being scared to death as we descended.  I looked at dad and he seemed to have confidence in me.  That was until I kept riding too close to the outside of the highway.  Dad told me that there was more room to the inside and stop driving like momma. He said that we would have to have new tires and the front end realigned if I kept running off the road.  Driving in Bessemer was scary and exciting.  I had the time of my life, me driving my daddy.

In her book, Catching Fireflies, Patsy Clairmont says that she read somewhere that we get our role models from our same-sex parent and our sense of safety and security from our opposite same-sex parent.  I don’t know about all that, but I do know that I am glad I had a daddy that loved me and taught me much about life.  I know there are thousands of children that do not have a dad in their lives.  Society is paying a tremendous price for this.  This creates a negative view of God as our Father.  Those that have a nurturing and tender interaction with their dad helps in bonding with our heavenly Father.  Clairmont says that Deuteronomy 32:4, 9-10 gives us a glimpse God’s father-heart.

 

He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

 

November is the time for Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving.  Thanks dad!