The Worse Thanksgiving Ever

When I was a freshman in college, my parents bought their dream farm. Fifteen prime acres of Tennessee cattle land. Dad wanted to raise pure bred black Angus cows. You know like the ones at Hardee’s. They moved into their new house in early April and Dad began purchasing his new stock. And getting the cows already on the farm that weren’t black Angus ready for market. One in particular warmed everybody’s heart. A little brown cow with huge brown eyes. We bottle fed Chocco from the time we moved onto the farm until he was weaned.

Come fall, dad took his non-black Angus cows to market and being farm kids we didn’t really think much about it. That’s the way life on a farm works.

That first Thanksgiving, we all gathered at mom and dad’s for dinner. Mom had told us that since they were now beef farmers, steak would be served for dinner instead of turkey. Fine, I prefer a good steak over turkey any day. We all gathered early at moms, the women cooking and gossiping the men working on somebody’s car in dad’s garage. The kids running in and out. It was stacking up to be the perfect Thanksgiving dinner. T-Bone steaks for everyone!

Finally lunch was done, and we gathered around the table to pray. Dad, a normally quiet, reserved man must have prayed for hours. He thanked God for everything under the sun, including each item on the table individually. Finally he said Amen, and everyone grabbed steak knife and fork and began to cut.

And that’s when Mom ruined Thanksgiving for everyone by saying, “Ya’ll eat up, this is Chocco.”

That will always be remember by the entire family as the Thanksgiving that we were all vegetarians.