The Memorable Thanksgiving

I don't have any particular memories of Thanksgiving until one year when my family did something completely unexpected. For reasons that I didn't understand then, and don't remember now, we decided to go to Piccadilly Cafeteria for Thanksgiving instead of doing something traditional.

I thought it would be really cool to go to a restaurant on Thanksgiving, and looked forward to it. Since I was just a kid, I didn't realize that I would feel the loss of seeing my parents carve the turkey, and couldn't imagine that I would really miss seeing that nasty cranberry sauce on the table; but I did. I enjoyed eating at the restaurant, of course. Piccadilly is one of those places where you go through the line and get what you want. Who doesn't like getting exactly what they want?

I didn't realize until then that Thanksgiving isn't about getting exactly what you want. It's about family, about community, and about gratitude for shared blessings. You can't really understand Thanksgiving if you get exactly what you want because it is all about being part of a the blessings that come from and are shared by a larger community. To this day, my family pauses prior to the annual meal to express our gratitude to the Lord for His blessings on the family as a whole and on the nation in which we are privileged to live.

We never went to a restaurant for Thanksgiving again; but it was a good lesson.

Jack “William Bradford” Parker

My Friend Spongebob

I don't remember his name, or much else about him except that he had buck teeth about as big as Spongebob's would be forty years later.

It all started when the horn on Dad's car stopped working. The story started, that is. I assume that Dad's horn wasn't the cause of my friend's buck teeth.

One morning, Dad pulled out of the driveway and started to drive to work. As he headed slowly up Mimosa, Dad saw Spongebob riding toward him on his bike. Dad stopped the car. My friend was riding fast, and had his head turned backwards so he could yell at someone. He couldn't see Dad's car. With no horn to honk, and no time to back up, Dad had little choice but to watch my friend ride right into the bumper of the car, fly into the air, and land face-first on the hood.

He left a perfect imprint of his two huge front teeth in the hood.

Jack “Squidward” Parker