Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday of the year. Its a holiday of sharing good times, good food and drink and of course watching football. The following stories are all factual, based on actual good times!

1. Thanksgiving, (probably 1982-1983, maybe?) – dateline Dallas, The Big D, ground zero for Thanksgiving football and I was there for it! Being an avid Dallas Cowboy fan growing up, (strange to also admit that I was also an avid NY Giant fan). Anyway, I was in Dallas for work and I was not going to miss a Thanksgiving game while in Dallas! This was back in the heyday, Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day, it was a religion in Dallas back then, and they were playing the team that they always played on Thanksgiving, the then Washington Redskins. Tickets for a Cowboys game was hard to get and if you could get them, it was a pricey ticket! But hey, I was in Dallas, I was a fan and I was not going to miss the game. So I bought tickets from a ticket broker, it was a lot of $$ and the seats were high up, but I couldn’t care, I was in! The little kid in me went nuts! The Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and The Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day… it doesn’t get any better! We get the to the stadium, early of course, to walk around and soak up every bit of this magical day. As we are walking up to the gate, I get hit with a man selling Field level seats! All of a sudden, money didn’t matter and I bought them! Pinch me! I find myself walking down to the field to talk with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders! I felt like I was 10 yrs old.. holding out a program to have one of the cheerleaders sign it. To add to the excitement, the work I was doing at the time was in downtown Dallas during the day… sampling programs on the street during the lunchtime crowd. I was there for a few weeks and this guy would come around from time to time and talk, chit chat, maybe a card trick or two. He was doing magic tricks and stunts on the street and he befriended me. He was a cool guy! His name was Bill… little did I know it was Wild Bill, a mascot for the Dallas Cowboys! Yup, I took this picture of him on the field clowning around!

2. Thanksgiving, (maybe 1992 or 1993) – My Dad was coming down to visit for Thanksgiving, so we were having him, and Grandma Mollie and Grandpa Leo over for the holiday. When my dad came to visit over Thanksgiving, it was always a great time! Aria was 2-3 years old and she loved to see her Grandpa H! This was the first time EVER that we decided to order Thanksgiving dinner from one of the local grocery stores. We ordered a Turkey breast with all the trimmings. We sat down to dinner and started eating…. I noticed something right away, but didn’t say a word and the dinner went great! They all loved the meal, we drank a couple of bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau, and Grandpa H, and Grandma and Grandpa, loved talking with little Aria in her high chair. This was the best kept secret since… well I have more of them but this was a good one! The turkey breast that we ate was actually ham! Yes, it was a ham…Either the store made a mistake or I was sabotaged! But it was the best tasting ham with gravy, that I had ever had! Lol…

3. Thanksgiving Break, 1977 – My first year in college and first break from classes! I was off from school from Thanksgiving until sometime in January. I couldn’t remember Thanksgiving dinner specifically that year, but after finishing my first semester, I went on a tour in Upstate NY to visit my high school buddies who were not lucky enough to be on break while I was. First, I flew into Buffalo and visited my friend Mikey who was at Sony, Buffalo. I’ll never ever forget that trip. The flight to Buffalo was ok, considering I flew on People’s Express. Flying Peoples was like riding a bus in the sky. The people who couldn’t afford to fly in general flew Peoples… and quite frankly, most of them belonged on the bus instead! I arrived in Buffalo and not long after, the snow began to fall. I spent a day or two with Mike, then hopped on The Greyhound and was off to Oswego, NY to drop in on my Uncle Perry. All I remember about Oswego was cold and ice. I mean of course I had a great time with Perry, but my memories consisted of the weather… Back on the bus and off to Ithaca NY to see my friend Lynn! I remember more about that stop than others. I stayed in the dorm with Lynn and friends and I swear, we must have had 3 fire drills in the middle of the night! But we really did have a great time… Later she had a caricature drawn of me memorializing the visit!

Next up after Ithaca, was Rochester to see my buds, Neil, Ralph and Rich who were all going to the same school. By now, I was in what I later learned was the Blizzard of ’77. Wind gusts ranging from 46-69 mph and 100″ of snow in some parts. I stepped off the bus in Rochester holding my luggage with snow drifts on either side of me and I thought I was going to turn into a popsicle and blow away! I remember that my friends did not pick me up from the bus. So I walked. There were no cell phones then. I walked through the blustery cold and freezing campus and tracked them down in their nice warm dorm rooms! The bastards…”it was too cold and windy to go out”, they said. After a few beers we settled in and enjoyed ourselves! I ended up flying back home from Rochester.

Ah, good times…so grateful… thats what Thanksgiving is all about…

How ’bout some interesting Thanksgiving facts:

1. The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for plumbers.
2. “Jingle Bells” was originally a Thanksgiving song. It was originally titled “One Horse Open Sleigh” and was later changed to Jingle bells which was prescribed for Christmas.
3. FDR moved Thanksgiving up a week to allow more time for shopping before Christmas. Otherwise the holiday would have fallen on Nov. 30.
4. The first Thanksgiving lasted three days. There was no turkey served, but there were at least five deer carcasses present.
5. The woman who got Thanksgiving reinstated at a national holiday also wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.
6. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons used to just be let go after the show. Can you imagine if they did that today? Back then, once they were released, they didn’t last long and popped!

And there you have it… who said you don’t come to this blog for fun and factual information? Happy Thanksgiving all!