My NoTe.... of ThaNksKnowledgeMeNt

As the Holidays approach I’m mostly thinking about some of my Thanksgiving's from the past. Missing my own Parents who have been gone for 4 years, not that long ago to me in my heart. I wanted to share How they carried our Ancestors Traditions and we as Descendant's are carrying them from one generation to the next.

My Son took the Torch of Military Tradition and will Pass it On.

 Amongst the dark, and mountainous terrain of Afghanistan I’m thinking also of my Son who is 26 and has been deployed 3 times. Normally when he's home, This is when I show out with Mom’s recipes. I do plan to “Video Oral History” him up when he gets back in April.
 I’m gonna get him while he’s young! One day he will give me a grandchild and I will wait with patience and anticipate till that day with love for them before they even come into this World. I'll be waiting to share and sit with those babies and be able to show them what their Father has done in his Life keeping in step with his Ancestors and how to carry on Traditions.

My Greatest Readers Are Not Yet Born. 

Thanksgiving is when I got to spend time with my first friends, whom were my first cousins. Aunts and Uncles, My parents siblings. Friends of the family.This is the time when the GRoWn FoLks were having a good time with the record player belting out tunes with all their “Old Jam’s” of the Temptations, The Supremes,  Sam and Dave. I have all the records now, Which is a Hoot! Now I play all them “Old Jam’s”, Like they use to do. Don’t you?

 GRoWn FoLks laughing robustly out loud whole heartily, doing the Dozens on each other. My Uncle Bobbie who is Sam Miles Jr, now gone on to Heaven. The Daniel brothers, Fred and Floyd, my cousins still living. They are the cream of the crop doing it like nobody can especially with a card game of Bid Whist, they showed out. Talk of past times and just enjoying each other's company.  We listened intently on steps, behind couches always mindful to stay out of sight. Children are to be seen, not heard. Mom would Holler “Ya’ll stop all that skinning and grinning, and go somewhere! we laughed and hollered anyway!
 I do that now with my kids every chance I get. I love using all Mom’s sayings! Who slammed the screened door? Who up there doing all that bumbling and fumbling!? Sound like a gang of elephants walking. She saw, smelled and heard everything at all times. She's always listened out for us kids while doing 3 other tasks.

My Parents in 1956. Carrying traditions on.

Another party was going on with us in the Camper, or down in the basement on Nebraska Ave in Toledo, or out in our barn standing by the cars in Pennsylvania depending on who’s house we were at that year, with our beat boxes, jamming to RunDMC, or the Sugar Hill Gang we were making our own little lifetime memories! Having somebody go sneak on a dare for a Malt Duck or a Miller Pony or just some Liquor for our little cups. Just to sneak a taste. You better not get caught.  Laughing, and as Mom would holler just to keep us in check as usual, "Are Ya’ll out there acting like you Ain’t got no Sense”? and What ya’ll doing?. Wave us off! and go on. Oh! what a time! 
Best part during holidays was of getting away with things, you didn’t get no whoopings, and Daddie usually handed out extra change and 25cent just in case you had to call home! He'd pile us up in his 76 Park Avenue Special Edition Wine colored Buick and tell us to be out standing in front of the "John Wannakers” store, so as not to make him get out that car!, that was the meeting spot. As he hollered out his Buick. He let you have your way going to the mall, going to the picture show and staying up late cackling like a bunch of hens, but he never would tell us to "Hush up" and go to bed.We had sense enough to know when enough was enough. 

Mom's Egg Pie Recipe

The smells of all that good soul food cooking the night before Thanksgiving, Which I’m ashamed to say would teasingly call “Slave Food” as a child. 
As time would go by and I would come to understand, know, love and appreciate a few of those recipes for example, like “Mom’s Egg Pie”. Mainly there was an abundance of fresh eggs around all the time. She didn't write her recipes down. A lot of times, I would call Mom and tell her to go step by step on what she did to get her recipes. She did things by heart. I wrote'em down.
It's the Importance on Why we pass them along.The reason they cooked the main dishes they did out of slavery from what was given to them or when Massa would let them grow their own garden on their own time and as long as it didn't interfere with their duties.
I will keep the recipes going so as not to break that cycle of tradition. These life history moments would go on from Wednesday till everybody got sent off to their different states on Sunday morning with their traveling mercies. With thoughts of the next time we'll all be together again. We didn't do just funerals we came together for all things.  Oh! what a time!

Now that I’m grown and watching my own family. I reminisce on all my childhood memories as my family has been making their own. Hope I’m Blessed to get OLD so I can sit, listen and laugh like Mom and Daddie did with us. 

On one Thanksgiving, Mom got to find out all the things we were doing behind them while not watching. Mom said if I had known ya’ll was carrying on like that I would of got ya! while laughing. No doubt in the same way her and Daddy did back Down Home in Alabama during the 30’s when they was “Yung”. Thoughts of the Depression and what their life was like during those times. They made a way out of no way.

When she got old and couldn't do all that standing , she’d still be sitting there in her spot at the kitchen table, directing us to put a dash and a splash of this and that making sure we were learning "How We Do" foods with her guidance. Mom coached us on while all the time she was passing tradition without us even paying attention."Bring it here and let me taste it". Okay! You cooking now. Keep going! 
I’d always sneak and check on them during the festivities as I got older. I loved the look of Love and Pride on their faces as they would sit somewhere quietly and reflect whispering to one another on they have carried this family, enjoyed and bore witness that our family TRADITIONS have been carried on that they have been taught by their Parents who where children of Slaves. Now we got it!

 Just as I, you be mindful, take a step back, “Take NoTe”….. and have a humble look at your family, stay in the moment as much as you can. The Family is still going on step by step carrying tradition along while making new ones. I even have a few. That will be my NoTe of Blessing for a Happy Thanksgiving!