Thanksgiving

With thanksgiving being so recent, I am going to share what thanksgiving was like growing up in a large family. We would all gather at my parent's house. The house was large enough for everyone; however, it would be crowded. Being young and not knowing anything different, this didn't bother me. In fact it was what I was used to, but with more people. It was exciting to me as we would get things ready for our thanksgiving dinner. My mom would always be the one to cook the turkey. And we would all help with everything from peeling potatoes to getting the table set. I liked to take a taste of the food as it was being prepared, but there was always someone there to stop me. My siblings seemed to have a rule that we were not to take tastes before we ate. Because of this I don't have that rule now that I am older. Besides, if we are eating at 2:00 I like to have a little something to tide me over. Well, back to my youth. We would put all of the food on the tables and pass it around so that everyone could get food. This was an efficient way to get food and it was also necessary because we didn't have any room to move around, the tables were too close together to get in and out. We would always have plenty to eat with leftover turkey for sandwiches later. After dinner we would all help with the clean-up, whether we wanted to or not. Once the dishes were washed and put away we would get out the games. One of the games we liked to play was Rook. We would play it all of the time. The game is about bidding for how many points you are going to take. Then each person plays a card in turn, and whomever has the highest card takes the trick. This person then starts the next round. We would stay up late playing games and eating pie. Speaking of pie, my mom would always make sweet potato pie. This is one of my favorites and I don't like pumpkin pie because sweet potato pie is so much better. One problem with pumpkin pie is that most people will put too much spice. I like the milder taste of sweet potato pie. I have gotten my mother's recipe and have been making it for the past few Thanksgivings.  

When younger each Thanksgiving was a lot of people, food, and fun.

Learning to ride a bike.

This may not seem like much to many of you; however, my experience with learning was not normal. When I was 8 years old my brother just older than me was trying to teach me to ride a bike. The bike that we used was too large for me and I could barely reach the ground when on it. It was also made of steel which made it heavy and hard to handle for someone big enough to ride it. If all this wasn’t bad enough, we were trying to learn on a gravel driveway that was slanted uphill. As I think about it now I am not sure why we didn’t try to ride downhill. Not that the hill was very steep in that direction. Each time I tried to ride I would fall over before I ever got going. I would try this a few times and get frustrated. We tried this a few other times with no success.

With this being the bike, you may wonder how I ever learned how to ride. Well, it wasn’t on this bike, it was on the bike of a friend. One day this friend was getting his bike back from the shop. I told him that I didn’t know how to ride and he said that he would teach me how. When he got his bike back from the shop, he showed me a few things such has how to turn. He lived on cul-de-sac so I was to ride to the end of the road and back. My friend was thinking that it would take me a while to get the hang of riding; however, I got on the bike, rode to the end of the street, turned around, and came back as though I had been riding a bike for many years. After I got back he asked about this and I told him that I really had never ridden a bike before. I guess the help that my brother had given me helped me to ride a bike once I had one that was the right size for me. 

Sharing Childhood Stories

Today we had a lesson on Family History in Sunday School. This got me to thinking that I have many stories about my childhood that my children don't know about. So, I have decided that I am going to try to write one story a week. A few of the topics that I will be sharing are: learning to ride a bike, my first childhood memories, spending a lot of time at the University Mall when I was in 4th grade, some of the childhood jobs and had and how they didn't teach me money management, and others. This will be a trip down memory lane and I hope you will come along for the journey as we reminisce about old times.