Thanksgiving, 1985

Thanksgiving. A time of family, food, and fun—as I recently heard it defined. Yes, I have another Thanksgiving tale.

The year was 1985. I had just moved to Wisconsin in anticipation of getting married. My wife, who wasn’t my wife yet, and her family traveled to spend the holiday in another town. I had to work so I stayed behind to keep the house warm for the cat and dog.

Now before anyone starts feeling sorry for me, I wasn’t alone. For Thanksgiving Day, I was invited to some friends’ house. We had a good southern meal—odd for being in Wisconsin, I know, but these people were from the south—and afterward, we spent the day playing games. I stayed until well after dark and then returned to my future in-laws’ house.

Meanwhile, it had been snowing—all day. It was still snowing when I left for work the next morning—and when I returned. And, it continued snowing well into Saturday. By this time, the long driveway was pretty snowed in. I’d been driving my father-in-law’s four-wheel drive pickup and hadn’t bothered to think about removing any of the piles of white stuff. And neither had I thought to shovel. Probably should have started that the first day, instead of playing games all day long!

Waking up Saturday, I suddenly remembered my wife’s family would be returning that afternoon and they had taken a car, a car that I knew would have difficulty getting into and up the snow filled driveway.

So, I thought I’d help out. I went to the shed and started up the John Deere with a snowplow already attached. I figured the job would only take a few minutes. Well, as anyone who has been around me knows, that Mr. Murphy guy and me have a lot in common—if anything can go wrong, it will. I’d made only one pass down the driveway, when the John Deere stopped. Just stopped. I tried for several hours to get it running but apparently, I wasn’t much of a mechanic.

Looking at the driveway, I knew it would still be hard to get a car through it. The one pass I’d made hadn’t really helped much at all. So, I jumped into the pickup and drove back and forth until I had the snow packed down enough. Then I started working on shoveling the three days’ worth of snow from around the walkway and the house. By that time, I knew I definitely had waited too long to shovel. It was late afternoon when my wife and her family drove in and I still hadn’t finished.

My father-in-law, being a far better mechanic than I, seemed unconcerned with the stalled John Deere. As I recall, he had the tractor running in about two minutes. Then, while he cleaned up the driveway a little, I continued working on the shoveling.

I did apologize for breaking his tractor. He said not to worry about it, that any time a breakdown didn’t cost any money, it was good. Well, that’s true, except it had cost some money—I think I used close to a full tank of gas driving the pickup back and forth! But, as I recently learned, Thanksgiving is, among other things, a time of fun. And I certainly did have fun!

Happy Thanksgiving! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.  Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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In The Middle

Usually, being caught in the middle of something is not a good thing. Stuck in the crossfire of two opposing sides, and feeling loyalty to both can be maddening. It often means being in the crosshairs of both sides, and can stem from family, friends, or be politically or job related. Usually.

In my case, at least as it relates to this blog post, being caught in the middle holds no negative association. There’s no crossfire or vying for loyalty, and I certainly don’t feel like I’m in anyone’s crosshairs. In fact, I find it sort of inspiring. I suppose I should explain.

This past Thursday, my wife and I were privileged to have a lot of family join us for Thanksgiving. We had all of our kids home (and the grandchildren), my brother and his family were here, as well as one of my aunts and my parents.

Now, I’ve notice this before, but for some reason I was struck by how much our kids reminded me of myself when I was younger. They have many of the same actions, the same habits, the same speech patterns, and a lot of the same looks. (My poor kids, I know).

And my grandkids, they just don’t have a chance. They seem to take after everyone in the family; parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles—I know, that’s kind of the norm among families. But it is amazing to see when everyone is together.

And now for the scary part; it also works in the reverse. I see myself and my brother doing things and saying things just like our parents. What’s more, we even look a lot like them. (Not too shocking, I realize). I’m also told I look and act a lot like my Grandpa—a guy I never really got to know that well. Could it be we are related?

The gist of what I’m trying to say here is, as much as life seems to change from generation to generation, it really stays the same. Time keeps going forward, yet, looking ahead or looking back doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference. It’s merely a different perspective; a different point of view in the landscape of life. I feel lucky because, for the moment at least, I seem to be caught right in the middle.

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS Bruce A. Borders also serves as the Vice President of Rave Reviews Book Club http://ravereviewsbynonniejules.wordpress.com

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Still Thankful

I know Thanksgiving is past but as I write this it is still the holiday weekend so, I guess I’m still feeling thankful. Thankful for a lot of things that never really get mentioned because they are overlooked or just taken for granted. I would name them all but unfortunately, I can’t. I know because I once tried to name everything I was thankful for and discovered the seemingly simple task was impossible.

So, I’ll just highlight a few things that are on my mind due to the holiday.

I’m thankful for the food, a wife who can, and will, cook. Thankful for the family who showed up to help us eat the food too. My parents, my brother and his family, an aunt, all of my kids and the four grandchildren, as well as several friends were here. Yeah, we had a full house!

I’m thankful for a job that allows me the opportunity to work and make a living - so we can afford to have a holiday! I’m thankful for getting the day off from work too, so I could spend the time with the previous mentioned list of people.

I’m thankful for a warm house, ‘cause it’s cold outside. And speaking of cold, I’m thankful the weather didn’t interrupt our plans.

I’m thankful for simple little things such as a camera - to take pictures that make memories easier to recall.

And I’m thankful to live in a country where we can have a Thanksgiving holiday - and actually have things to be thankful for.

These may seem like insignificant things but to me they’re definitely not. I don’t want to be one of those people who do not appreciate what they have until it’s gone. And someday, all the things I mentioned may very well be gone. There are no guarantees in life. So, I just wanted to say I’m thankful for them - at Thanksgiving and all year long.

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books. Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, and other titles, are available as ebooks on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. His books are also available in paperback at most online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders?ref=BruceABorders  #BruceABorders

Making A Turkey

Third grade. Thanksgiving week. For a school project, the teacher had all the kids in class make paper turkeys. We used colored paper, and traced around patterns that she had provided, cut out the designs, and then assembled our “work of art.” Unknown to us, the project was to be graded.

At first, it would seem that everyone’s turkey would look the same. I mean, we all used the same pattern, and the same colored paper. But the end result was drastically different from student to student. Most of the finished projects did resemble a turkey - except for one kid. He thought it would be “better” if things were put together backwards. Instead of the feet at the bottom and feathers arranged around the top, his had them swapped. He told the teacher his was a dead turkey.

No, the kid wasn’t me, but his design did give me an idea. Before the teacher could check mine, I did some quick modifications. Using the scissors, I cut off all the feathers, the feet, and the head. All that remained was an almost round piece of brown paper. This is what I presented - a cooked turkey!

Needless to say, the teacher was not impressed by either of our jokes. And at lunch time, we got the privilege of making our turkeys again. And, we were told, we couldn’t go to recess before we’d finished.

The other kid went through the whole process again, tracing the patterns, cutting out all new parts from the colored paper and gluing them together. But me, I’ve always been in a hurry. Making a whole new turkey threatened to take up all of my time for lunch recess. So, I had a quick solution, I just glued the pieces I’d cut off back on - and didn’t even try to hide it, I glued them right on the front. Of course, my turkey was a little out of proportion and smaller than it had been. But the teacher hadn’t said it had to be perfect!

She never said a word about the way I’d fixed it, just told me to go ahead and go outside.

I should’ve known something was up.

Normally, any projects we made were taken home, but not the turkeys. The teacher kept them. A few weeks later, I found out why.

Open house. All the parents of the students and lots of other people showed up to walk through the classrooms and check out what the kids had been doing. And in my room? Yep, the turkeys we’d made were displayed - with our names in big bold letters. You could easily see where I’d cut everything off and glued it again. Obviously, the lady was trying to embarrass me! Okay, maybe she was trying to teach me a lesson, I don’t know.

But, I did know that I wasn’t going to let her win.

While she was busy talking to my parents, I took my turkey down, flipped it around, and taped it back on the wall. With the ugly cuts and splices now hidden, it didn’t look too bad. It was still smaller and looking the opposite direction than everybody else’s, but it did look like a turkey.

The next day the teacher handed out our turkeys for us to take home. Mine was not handed out. When I asked where it was, she said she was keeping it for a while and would return it later. Turns out, she’d discovered that two turkeys could be made from the same amount of paper if they were made just slightly smaller and she wanted to use my turkey for a pattern!

My grade? An “A!”

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books. Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, and other titles, are available as ebooks on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. His books are also available in paperback at most online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders?ref=BruceABorders

My Thanksgiving

            Thanksgiving 1986. My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I, along with her sister, had traveled to Wyoming to visit my parents for the holiday. We made the wintry trip fine, had a good time, and ate way too much of my Mother’s delicious southern cooking. Facing a 16-hour drive home, we’d planned to leave early Sunday morning, which would get us back in time to catch up on some sleep before Monday morning. Due to an evening snowstorm, we decided to allow a little extra time and took off about 11 p.m. Saturday night.

            The snow was light and didn’t present much of a problem – at first. The further we traveled however, the worse the storm and the roads became. By 4 a.m., we’d barely made 150 miles. The freeway was covered with more than a foot of heavy, wet snow and I was down to driving 30 mph. The 4-wheel drive Subaru (my Father-in-law’s car) performed very well in the less than desirable driving conditions and I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d get little to no sleep before work on Monday morning.

            Traffic was almost non-existent, though occasionally, a semi would pass, temporarily blinding me in a swell of blowing and swirling snow. Each time one appeared in my mirror, I’d let off the gas, letting the truck go by more quickly, eliminating most of the whiteout. Starting up a small grade as one truck was passing, I waited for the billowing cloud to disappear. As soon as it did, I noticed the truck driver in front of me having problems; his truck and trailer were sliding back and forth, jack-knifing; first in one direction, then the other. My first thought was, how am I going to get around him if he blocks the whole road when he crashes? Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. The driver managed to right his vehicle and take off up the hill. I breathed a sigh of relief. Prematurely, because that’s when my own troubles began.

The criss-crossing of the tractor-trailer’s tires, sliding sideways through the heavy snow had created a chaotic maze of deep ruts and piles of snow. Hitting the first set of ruts, I felt the car slide to the side. Steering into the slide, the car straightened out just in time to hit the next set of ruts. This time we turned around backwards. By now my speed was down to less than twenty, and keeping my foot off the brake and the gas pedal, I hoped to ride it out. That hope was short-lived. With a significant decrease of friction, a car sliding on slick snow doesn’t slow down nearly fast enough. Moving sideways, toward the edge of the road, I could see the only thing between our car and the cliff was a lone delineator. For a brief instant, I wondered if the little metal post would stop the car. Common sense then prevailed and I knew it wouldn’t. Couldn’t. The laws of physics just didn’t allow it. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

That’s when I woke up my wife. Until this point, both her and her sister had been asleep, oblivious to the impending danger. “We’re going to wreck,” is about all I had time to say. My wife, on the other hand, found a little extra time – to pray.

            The crash happened in slow motion, or seemed to. We counted as the car rolled; up on it’s top, and then back on the wheels, hoping each time the wheels were on the ground that it would stop. Eventually, it did, but not on its wheels. Three and a half times we rolled with the car finally coming to rest upside down. After a bit of struggling with seatbelts and car doors, we managed to climb out of the smashed up vehicle. Then we hiked the thirty-foot, snow-covered cliff, back up to the road. Catching a ride with a truck driver, who took us into the nearest town, we made a few calls and waited for the tow truck to retrieve the car. Some ten hours later, and after several trips, they were still unable to locate the vehicle, despite the fact that I had given them the exact location. The continuing snowfall had obscured the car from view, they told us. It was almost dark when they finally showed up with the badly damaged car. My Dad, who had come as soon as I called (along with my Mother), helped me refill all of the fluids, and jumping the dead battery, we got the car running. Every panel on the vehicle was dented but it still ran. My in-laws had also come to meet us, along with the Pastor of our church. We all made it home on icy roads without further incident, though I didn’t make it to work until Tuesday.

            The next summer, my wife and I stopped to look at the place we’d wrecked. The hill we’d rolled down was steeper than it had seemed at the time. And then we saw quite a chilling sight. About thirty feet down was the small outcropping where the car had landed. It looked barely wide enough for the car, and on the other side was a drop-off, straight down for at least a hundred feet! Not knowing this and unable to see in the dark, we’d walked all around the car. Yet, none of us had fallen off! It was amazing the car had stopped where it did and even more amazing we hadn’t plunged to our death. Perhaps my wife’s prayers had something to do with it!

And that brings me to my point. Every Thanksgiving, I’m reminded of this event and how thankful I am to be alive. That’s My Thanksgiving. Oh, and one more thing. Though I wouldn’t advise this, if you want to find a way to acquire a good used vehicle, at a decent price - roll it down a cliff. We bought the severely dented car from my father-in-law and drove it for another three years!

Bruce A. Borders, author and songwriter has over 500 songs and 9 books. Over My Dead Body, his latest ebook, is available on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®. For more information, visit http://www.bruceaborders.com/ or http://overmydeadbody.jimdo.com/.