Turkey to Turkey

  The Thanksgiving turkey is resting in my refrigerator, via Shadybrook Farms. He is a Fresh Natural Young Turkey, weighing in at 22.42 lbs.  He is the 46th  in line, following 45 previous roastees, consecutively since 1968.  I cooked my first Thanksgiving turkey in 1968, as a newlywed in our Schaghticoke apartment.  My in-laws were the official guests and I remember agonizing over the details; I chopped and measured all the ingredients for the stuffing, adjusting upward for the increased size of the bird. The 3/4 cup of chopped celery became 3 1/4 cup and the 3 tbsp. of parsley was 15 tbsp.  I know this because it's recorded in my "Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook," the one with the red and white checked tablecloth design. 
     My in-laws were the featured guests that day, but as it happened a lot of people  we knew stopped by, including Shirley and Bob, Ruth and Mike, and Dorothy and Gus.  It was fun, being among people who were young and healthy, and who thought nothing of traveling. 
    Those were early married years for many, and we talked of babies, but I hadn't yet revealed my secret, since I'd yet to break the news to Ma, and baby number one was still six or so months away. 
    Other relatives had family commitments: my own mother had her sister and foster children to join in the meal, and we'd connect later.  My father was gone, suddenly and shockingly, but everyone else was hale and hearty, as far as we knew.  People all around us.  The good old days.
   The following Thanksgiving found us living in Valley Falls, with a house and baby, and a new tradition began.  I would cook the turkey and bring it to my mother's house, where she happily would have prepared all the vegetables; the oven was at the bottom in her stove, and she didn't enjoy bending over to cook a turkey.  So it all worked out.  Sometimes Dorothy and Gus would be at dinner, when they weren't at his parents' house.  Good times continued.
    We transported the Thanksgiving turkey down the road every year after that, until 1983, when things changed again.  We invited Helen, alone now, to our house for at least one year, but she was so much more comfortable eating dinner in her own place that we would send down the complete dinner.  She much preferred that practice, which we continued through her last Thanksgiving, in 1994. 
   In 1995, and every year up to 2012, I have cooked and kept the turkey in our house.  Last year, in 2012,the turkey again traveled the familiar  road to the house; with the grandkids getting bigger, as well as us adults getting larger, we were pressed for table space. ( The previous year we had brought the kitchen table into the living room, which was roomier, but kind of a pain in the neck.)   It took about six or seven trips to get everything transported but it worked out. This year, Young Tom from Shady Brook is scheduled to be packed up, with all the vegetables and pies, to travel to Schaghticoke.  It will be the first time I've eaten Thanksgiving Dinner in  Schaghticoke since 1968, 45 years ago, when everything was new.  You should see my cookbook now, ravaged by time. Sic transit Gloria.