Altar Call – Opelika-Auburn News
Walter Albritton
November 25, 2007
Thanksgiving memories are both precious and painful
Thanksgiving memories are a mixed
bag for most of us. Some are precious and some are painful. But life is like
that and the challenge is to focus on our blessings instead of our problems.
Somehow we must not allow yesterday’s pain to rob us of today’s joy.
My family was not wealthy. I was
born on a farm when times were hard. My dad raised cows and hogs, grew cotton
and corn, and always had a vegetable garden.
I learned growing up that I had been born during the "depression.” But
I never thought of myself or our family as poor.
Because of dad’s garden there was
always food on the table even when there was no money. My siblings – three
sisters and a brother – and I ate at a table that my dad built with his own
hands. It was sturdy and big enough for the seven of us.
I still have that table. Recently
my son Tim helped me put a new top on it. The legs need to be replaced but the
table is still serviceable. I feel a strange sadness for families who raise
children without eating together at a table. Back then there were no TV trays
since there was no TV. I know things change, but I believe there is still value
in sitting around the supper table together. It helps children feel they
belong.
My siblings and I experienced
accountability at suppertime. When my parents asked how things went at school,
one of my sisters might pipe up and say, "Just fine, except I heard that
Walter Junior (that was me) got a whipping by the principal today." My
sisters had such good memories; I don’t think they ever forgot to report to my
misdeeds to mom and dad.
After supper my dad would take me
out back to the wood shed. There he would remove his broad, black belt and give
me a few licks. It was his way of encouraging better behavior at school.
O. M. Bratten, the principal, used
a wooden paddle as his “board of education.” He made a naughty student bend
over a chair in his office. Then he would whack the rear end three times. To
get a whipping at school was no dishonor to us boys. The only dishonorable
thing was to cry, so we tried awfully hard to grit out teeth and convince
ourselves that it did not hurt. We compounded our sin by lying, insisting to
our friends that the whipping did not hurt.
After a paddling we were required
to sit under the big clock in the school office. That was humiliating because
everyone who came in and out of the office knew exactly why we were there.
The board was actually nothing
compared to my dad’s leather belt. There was no contest; that black belt left
whelps on me that stayed sore for days. Does that mean that my dad had less
compassion than the principal? I don’t know. I do know that I never got a
whipping I did not deserve. And I honestly believe the punishment caused me to
change my behavior and pay more attention to the rules.
Let’s get back to mamma’s table.
Mamma loved Thanksgiving and Christmas. She loved to serve a sumptuous meal
especially on Thanksgiving Day. The bigger the crowd, the more she loved it. I
can still see the bountiful feast she prepared, with turkey and ham, and always
one of her specialties – toasted pecans.
Mamma always prepared pumpkin pie
and potato pie. She fixed both for one reason: my brother liked potato pie more
than pumpkin pie. The rest of us could eat two or three pieces of mamma’s
pumpkin pie, every slice decorated with whipped cream. It was not Cool Whip
either; she whipped the cream herself.
But pie was not enough. Mamma never
failed to serve ambrosia for dessert also. For the uninitiated, ambrosia is
orange slices covered with shredded coconut, topped off with a cherry. Always
tasty!
There was turkey, dressing, and
cranberry sauce, along with a plate of ham. The vegetables were from daddy’s
garden and he never failed to remind us that he had grown the food himself. My
parents believed in canning so we had an endless supply of lima beans, corn,
tomatoes, okra, black-eyed peas, potatoes, onions, and green beans. Mamma and
daddy took great pride in always having food on the table. Nothing pleased them
more than to have their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren come
home for a Thanksgiving meal.
After lunch there was for many
years the family ritual of covering mamma’s green house with a thick plastic
sheeting. I can still see my four sons climbing up on the roof, with some of
their cousins, to pull that sheeting over the fragile glass roof. Dad had a gas
furnace inside the green house so he and mamma could take care of their flowers
through the winter.
The old green house was
bull-dozed down after mamma and daddy died. It was just as well. Most of the
windows were broken and it had not been used for five or six years. Dad was so
proud of having built that green house for mamma. She loved to grow flowers,
and she loved to give flowers to people.
Though mamma and daddy are gone
now, and the old green house is no more, some wonderful memories remain. There
are painful memories too – of broken relationships, broken families, and broken
hearts. But I refuse to let these memories cloud my day or make me forget my
precious Thanksgiving memories.
Thursday about 50 members of our
family and some friends gathered again at the old home place. It is not the
same. Our son Steve and his wife Amy remodeled it into an even more beautiful
home. My wife and I did sit at a table in the same room where daddy’s table
once sat. We laughed and talked and shared precious members with my sisters
Painful memories were repressed, put aside for another day. Thanksgiving Day is a time for savoring precious memories and giving thanks that though life is indeed difficult, it is also good. + + +