Unthanksgiving Day

These are the rantings of a mad missionary. Mad as in crazy, luny, unstable, barmy or nuts. I find myself in a completely and totally anti-thanksgiving day mood. It’s not that I will not be able to pig out and commit the sin of gluttony . . . I can do that as easily here as I could in the States. It’s that I am separated from those I love the most. Thus I plan to petition the US government for a new holiday - Unthanksgiving Day. It should precede Thanksgiving day by a day or two for the best effect.

Some might petition the CMA to release me into early retirement after reading this, but at least I can maintain my “up frank” (another endearing misspeak by my English teacher sweet wife), e.g. transparency into my scarred soul to the blogging world (which is quite a bit of posturing BS for the most part).

Thanksgiving is a big holiday in my family. Christmas is OK and b-days are even less, but Thanksgiving has always been a big one for us. When I was a kid, Thanksgiving day was honestly alot of work, but it was fun family work. Thanksgiving day was always hog killing day at my grandparents farm.

While Granny was in the kitchen making a meal that would feed at least a 1000 people, the men and the boys would see to the demise of our humongous hog. I could easily burn the entire allotment of words for the remainder of this blog on stories from assisting disagreeable hogs into the next reality, but I will resist this strong urge.

So after dispatching the animal to Hog heaven, we would take a tractor and use the rear hydraulics to lift the immense lard-bucket off the ground. Then we would take pots of boiling water and pour over the animal to assist us in scraping the hair off. By this time the extended family had usually gathered and several tables were set up; one for making sausage and one for slicing fat. Obviously the meat parts headed for the sausage table and the thick (usually 6 inches or so) outer fat portions were on the other table.

The sausage table had a grinder or two attached and the goal was basically to cut the meat into small enough portions, in order that they could be fed into the meat grinder. Once ground, mixed and seasoned with tons of black pepper to Papa’s taste, then the sausage was formed into balls and cooked. When finished cooking, the sausage balls were put into Mason jars along with some of the hot grease and hot food caused the jars to seal as they cooled and this is how we preserved the sausage.

At the Fat table, each person received a long strip of fat and skin about 2-3 feet long and about 5-6 inches wide, and as I said earlier, they were often 6 inches thick. The goal here was to slice the fat into thin slices which were then gathered up and placed in 2-4 giant cast-iron pots that were sitting on open fires. We would literally boil the fat out of these thin strips and eventually the strips would become crispy and crunch . . . which we called cracklins. The oil was poured off and preserved and used as lard and cooking oil for the coming year.

The combinations of all these smells of sausage cooking, cracklins popping, wood smoke, etc on a cold Fall morning, with all my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents in attendance . . . finally concluding in an incredible meal together after the hog was finally worked up completely . . . constituted Thanksgiving day in my childhood.

As I put our Short Term Team on the plane this morning heading back to the States for their thanksgiving (I had to restrain myself from climbing into the check baggage!), and as I contemplate that my three children are in Germany and the States, and as I realize that Thanksgiving day is going to be just another long work day for Brenda and I, . . . . . . . . was birthed the idea of an Unthanksgiving Day. While there is much that I am genuinely thankful for, like most days, there is also much that I feel acute loss for and that results in today . . . an Unthanksgiving Day.