Thanksgiving in Alabama

A McCorvey Thanksgiving is an event involving at least a hundred relatives per meal-some driving all the way from Chicago, some driving ten minutes- only two or three people in the kitchen, and some of the rest at a football game. It starts at breakfast. Grandpa, who will spend the entire day smiling and making us feel loved and safe, will make a grand breakfast with lots of sausage, eggs, grits, toast, and orange juice. TV is on to the news. By lunch time BET is on, and lunch is set buffet style outside in the sun. Chicken salad on either white bread or Ritz crackers and hot dogs and chips are served, and a tub filled with twenty pounds of ice, twelve Faygo pops of assorted flavors, and coke sits nearby the door of the house. After eating, a game of tag or a race happens pitting the walking-capable youngest against the slightly less young. Soon Aunt Bernice hands out the football tickets and receives the payment for the purchased tickets. She always gets the tickets for the Tuskegee side of the stadium. We have to decide within minutes whether to walk there or take a chance that we will find a parking spot. It is sunny and a short walk, so we opt to walk. When we get there the air is charged with excitement. We get to our seats by the whole family, although Alex-one of our cousins closer to David's age- is not happy about the location. He and Uncle Fred are ASU fans, much to Aunt Bernice's chagrin. We spend the entire game staring at the clock, waiting for half time. Few come to the games for the game itself. The actual show is about to begin. Tuskegee's drum majors march out onto the field with whistles and staffs in mouth and hand. The band itself plays something serious, something to highlight the dancers, and then a final piece to get off the field. Then comes the ASU band. Their drum majors do their signature move where they lean back all the way to the ground. Dad leans over and tells me how he wishes UK's band was here to watch the spectacle. In mom's opinion the Tuskegee dancing girls are "more modest" than ASU's. The stadium is about half empty by the beginning of the second half. We are among the leavers. When we get back, two more buffet style tables are laid out, and the pop has been restocked. We aid in the kitchen, tasting where we can, and filling trays with food to be put out on the tables outside. An hour goes by before the rest of the McCorvey clan has arrived and by then we are ravenous. Grandpa prays over the food, our family, and the rest of the world, and then the oldest McCorvey's go through the line first. Then everyone else. We take what we can-or can't-eat, and we eat all we take. From the collared greens to the turkey to the beef to the macaroni, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, pound cake and red velvet cake it is all delicious and yet painful as we consume more than we know we should. Even as it gets darker we stay outside, although some stay in, and slowly the party is reduced in size. We stay with Grandpa until we can tell he's flagging, and then we leave as well to go to Uncle Enis's grand house where my sister and I watch the incredibly large TV, my brother plays football with the two other boys in the upstairs playroom, the women move the food, and the men drink beer and watch football in the designated room by the inside pool. Before long my sister and I are begging Dad to drive us back to the hotel, and eventually he obliges. We all hug our goodbyes, load up the car, and return to the hotel where we turn Animal Planet, and soon go to bed.