By John Grindrod
Guest Columnist
While food is often front and center with each holiday of the calendar year, there really is no holiday more closely associated with food than Thanksgiving. However, unrelated to the multifarious and sumptuous dishes placed on our tables after the leaves far different than the ones we finished raking last month have been inserted in our dining tables, Thanksgiving has provided me so very much more.
For the child I once was, the holiday surely rang the opening bell for the Christmas season. Since the inaugural Macy’s Parade in 1924, the day has also provided for many children much-needed verification that Santa has fared quite nicely since last year’s big push to deliver all those presents and is indeed alive and well and waving from a parade float, alliteratively, looking jolly and generous.
Another special gift each Thanksgiving has brought to me is a certain serenity that comes from the absence of any gifting anxieties, unlike that next holiday at the end of December. While the day certainly revolves around the feast, there’s also a certain calm to the day when people who really like one another gather and converse, perhaps, between a bit of libation, while watching some football snippets on TV.
Speaking of those affairs of the gridiron, I’d be remiss if I didn’t separately mention the role historically the sport has played on Thanksgiving. For me, during my childhood that was at its zenith in the first half of the 1960s, the sport was a conduit to both social interaction and the enhancement of my bond with a father so often on the road in hotels during work weeks as he sold the copper wire and steel that supported his family so well.
As for the social part, well, that occurred in the morning during the time when Mom, the real hero of Thanksgiving, was the kitchen version of a whirling dervish while prepping the meal’s various components. That’s when I would head to Faurot Park, specifically, the part that throughout my lifetime has been known as The Hole, off North Shore Drive just west of Bradfield Center.
There in the commingled greensward of the summer outfields of Diamonds 5, 6, 7 and 8, my St. Charles mates and I would play our tackle-football Thanksgiving Bowl. If the field was wet, that made our game special, and, if there was a light dusting of snow, well, you could elevate the special to the euphoric.
Once home, after our game and, depending on field conditions, following Mom’s instructions and heading to the shower, it was time for Dad and me to watch the traditional Thanksgiving Day NFL game together. He with his Budweiser and I with my Pepsi strengthened our father-son bond by watching the Lions of Detroit and the Packers of Green Bay battle it out.
While my sis Joanie would filter in and out of the room periodically, Dad and I were dedicated viewers, exchanging thoughts on the game but also talking about so much more. It was that famous 1962 game that I remember most vividly, one played in Detroit on the then home field of the Lions, Tiger Stadium, where the team played from 1938 when it was called Briggs Stadium through 1974.
If you’re of a certain age and a football fan, you’ll recall perhaps sitting in amazement as Dad and I did watching the Lions dismantle the defending NFL champion Packers, that entered the game 10-0, coached by the great Lombardi, 26-14, and in the process sacking Packer quarterback and future Hall of Famer Bart Starr a jaw-dropping eleven times. It was the only game the Packers would lose that year on their way to another NFL championship.
Finally, when it comes to the symbolic union of Thanksgiving and football, I have a regret. While I’m generally pretty happy to have been planted in the time period I was, I surely would have loved to have been born early enough to remember in Lima the annual Thanksgiving high-school game between the South Tigers and Central Dragons. Except for one year, the two schools played each other every Thanksgiving morning from 1919 through 1945.
Years ago, during my brief fling with sports-talk radio on a Saturday morning show I did with my lifelong pal Mike Schepp, Mike and I had on some former players from that final Turkey Day game in 1945. Seeing the mist in the eyes of former Dragon Bill Komminsk and former Tiger Chuck Sifred as they spoke of how special that long-ago rivalry was made that a very special show for Mike and me. More tickets were sold than seats allowed at Lima Stadium that day, and extra bleachers were brought in from both South’s gym and from Shawnee to accommodate the crowd estimated at 6,000 fans.
Yes indeed, while the bountiful feast that each Thanksgiving fills the fine china is thought to be the day’s star, over the years, at least for me, there really has been so very much more that have made the day special.
John Grindrod is a regular columnist for The Lima News, a freelance writer and editor and the author of two books. Reach him at [email protected].
