A Thanksgiving Fable

2020. It's an odd year for Thanksgiving.  Everyone's situation is different but our family has a lot to be thankful for....and yet, will not be gathering in official celebration of same.  It got me to thinking of Thanksgivings when I was growing up.  And a story came to me.  It's a mixture of truth and fiction, with of course all the trimmings.  Maybe a little stuffing here and there.

My grandma Hanson was a heroic cook.  The Thanksgiving feast went on for hours, and always featured the biggest damn turkeys I'd ever seen.  Some things get smaller as you grow up and see them with more mature eyes.  My grandparent's house for example.  But paradoxically the turkeys kept getting bigger with each passing year.  I recently got to wondering how this could be.  Here's what I came up with.

My grandpa Hanson ran a little grocery in Hawley Minnesota.  I remember it having tall shelves such that items on the upper tiers had to be grabbed with a special pole.  He kept the cash till in the freezer at night to deter thieves.  Well one year a brand spankin' new grocery store opened up one block down Main street.  This "Red Owl" was clearly going to put the Hanson grocery out of business.  I figure that the manager felt terrible about this and came to my grandmother one day:

"Mrs. Hanson, I'm just the manager and don't make these decisions.  But I want you to know that I really feel badly about this and if there is anything, anything at all I can do for you...just ask."

At which point my granny fixed him with a surprisingly steely glare and said:  "We'll talk in November".

My grandmother always wanted the biggest turkey available.  This was an inflexible demand that was not influenced by how many family would be present to eat it.  So when November came around, so did my grandmother.  Giving a slight disdainful shake of her head at the puny 12 and 14 pound turkeys in the display case she asked for the manager and said these were not sufficient. He went to the back of the store and came forth with a frosty 20 pounder.  Grandma looked it over and said:  "Well.....it will do.  But next year I'll need a bigger one."

A year passed.  The outside world changed.  The grandsons expected on Turkey Day were becoming gangly youths with, one assumes, bigger appetites.  So when Mrs. Hanson showed up at the Red Owl the manager was ready.  And rather pleased with himself.

"Mrs. Hanson.  This is the biggest turkey available anywhere in the Red Owl system".  Casting an appraising eye on the 25 pound behemoth she tersely said:  "I suppose it will do.  But next year I'll need a bigger one."

Another year passed and in her visits to the Red Owl grandma - a keen observer - noted that the manager appeared more confident than usual.  In fact, he asked her if it would be convenient for her to come on a specific date to pick up this year's "big bird".  

Grandma Hanson was a wise individual, but her world was the insular one of a small town.  She knew all about the mildly scandalous doings over in "Little Finland", the community of outsiders that was literally across the tracks.  And of course she kept secret the prank she played on the makers of the Hawley Lutheran Cookbook that would not be revealed until a full generation after her passing.  The affairs of the wider world simply did not come to her attention.  And that was our very good fortune.

Otherwise she might have learned that a Heaviest Turkey Competition had been ongoing in Great Britain since 1955.  It began impressively with an initial 42 pound entrant.  Exactly what sorts of radiation, genetic manipulation and hormone injections were ultimately involved remains shrouded in mystery, but that it was clearly out in Crimes Against Nature territory cannot be doubted.  The contest was abruptly ended in 1989 after "Tyson" an 86 pound monster claimed the title.  His fate and that of his grower Phillip Cook of Peterborough UK are never spoken of.

But that lay in the future.  As it happens there was an active turkey growing industry in Western Minnesota at that time and no doubt pulling a few strings the Manager had, well, managed to obtain one of their research subjects, a failed attempt to match the English turkey growers.  While no "Tyson" the local entrant "Big Tom" was an impressive 47 pounds.  

It did not fit into the normal freezers at the supermarket and had to be unloaded directly from a refrigerated trailer.  Viewing its frosty magnificence grandma faced an existential crisis.  But she was made of stern stuff indeed this daughter of hungry Depression years.  She nodded in homage and said, with perhaps just a touch of hesitation in her voice: "It will do.  But next year.........I want something bigger".

A couple of side notes here.  I suspect the bird was carried into the house with the assistance of neighbors.  How she cooked it I can't say.  A few years later by the way, the Big Tom Project was terminated and as a cover story the Big Tom Statue I've written about on a previous holiday post was placed on a hill overlooking Frazee Minnesota.

I want to credit the manager in this story.  Few promises made in good faith can ever have been tested so severely or fulfilled with such difficulty.  

The next year he just said he'd have the truck bring the turkey directly to her house.  It arrived earlier than usual, about November 8th.  Grandma had been advised that it might take a little longer than usual to defrost this one.  At the appointed time the big Red Owl truck backed into her driveway.  And when the rear door was thrown open a chilling, in more than one sense, sight was beheld.

On a pallet tied down with wire cables and slapped with stickers indicating it had been shipped from New Zealand, was a massive bird carcass.  Easily 200 pounds it sat there with a cold malice defying anyone to figure out a way to cook it by methods short of a flamethrower and/or a Big Tom Level conflagration.

My grandmother knew when she had been bested.  She smiled at the Manager, who frankly was grey and shaking by this point, and said that perhaps that one was a little much for this year's Thanksgiving.

She was up in years by then and it was time for smaller scale festivities held at one of her daughter's houses.  

Only years later did I learn the true origins of The Biggest Damn Bird Ever.

It was in fact not a turkey but a Giant Moa.  These enormous birds strolled about in contentment until the first humans, the Maori, turned up circa 1300 AD.  In short order the moa were hunted to extinction.  Now you many not know it but New Zealand has lots of glaciers.  And they have been receding since about 1890.  The monstrous bird that ended up in my grandmother's driveway evidently was the carcass of one of the last Giant Moas, retrieved from a glacier and delivered - by means I cannot imagine - to her doorstep.  It is estimated that they sometimes topped 500 pounds, so this one was likely a mere teenager.

Well for what it's worth that is my Thanksgiving fable.  We'll be a small gathering this year and feasting on smaller fare.  But grandma Hanson will be with us in spirit, encouraging us to tuck away that second or third helping.  Anyway, here's a picture of her from late in life holding her first great grandchild.  I'm sure she's thinking:  "Well, it will do.... but I was expecting something bigger".