Thanksgiving Dinner - Almost Prairie Style

Things went along fairly well for awhile and we were becoming more content with our country estate.  Things were going so well we decided to have Thanksgiving Dinner all by ourselves.  I woke early to put the turkey on, bake a pie, peel potatoes, and generaly prepare our little abode for our first holiday.  After breakfast we took a long walk through the woods, watched a mama and baby deer meander through the fields, carried in some firewood, and tried to pretend we were early pioneers on our way to visit the Indians.

Our day was nearly idyllic - until dinner.  Not that the dinner itself was not perfect, I am a good cook afterall, but among the treats of candied yams, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and my world famous gravy, I started to notice something was slightly amiss.  Hubby and I are just about the same height but as I was shoveling, I mean daintly putting, a spoonful of corn pudding into my mouth I noticed that he appeared to be growing taller across the table from me.  Ordinally I would have thought this was a good thing but I knew in my heart something about this was not going to end right. 

Not wanting to alarm anybody, I kept my fears to myself and just kept right on eating.  Okay, so maybe I was just hungry, but I still didn't want to scare anybody.  Along about my second slice of pie I looked across at my sweet hubby was at least four inches higher than I was.  I was beginning to have trouble shortning my fork to mouth stride so no one else would notice that I was coming surprisingly close to eye level with my Cool Whip covered cherry pie.

Fortunately dinner ended and the children scooted off to listen to old reruns of "The Shadow" on PBS radio.  It was then that hubby looked across and made the astute observation, "are you shrinking"?   Duh, do you think?  "I think I am going to need some help getting out of my chair." 

Turns out our kitchen floor had some weak spots.  Many weak spots we were to find out.  Since winter was coming upon us we decided to put carpet squares over the weak spots until Spring when we could replace the entire floor.  At first we had no trouble, once we moved the table, missing the carpet squares but the longer winter drug on the less uncarpeted space we had.  In fact, by the time we replaced the floor, it was almost completely carpeted.

Good 'Ole Golden Rule Days

As much as I knew I was going to miss them, the time came when the kiddies had to go to school.  So early one September morning I scrubbed and polished four reluctant youngsters and drug them into the car.  I drove to what appeared to be an old wooden dormitory for the WPA but said "School House" on a big sign out front, and yes it did have a bell, and smelled of coal.  I realized right away we were out of place.  My girls in dresses and patent leather shoes and my son in a cotton shirt and khaki slacks would be no match for the bib overalls, combat boots, and straw hats running through the hallways trying to get to class before the bell rang. 

After what seemed to be an eternity I managed to get the little ones settled into their own classrooms, surprised that there was more than one.  The staff was efficient and seemed more than happy to have four new students so, with minor reservations, I left them and drove off to enjoy the solitude of pampered days all by myself.  I did have to smile as I left the school yard and passed a little boy running up the school lane.  He was dressed in bib overalls, red flannel shirt, red hair, and freckles and I knew beyond a doubt that Howdy Doody was alive and kicking.