When my father and
his brother were young boys, they did everything together.
They spent their years as adolescents raising steers for 4H, riding horses, and
climbing around the old barns of the farm they grew up on. The
two were almost inseparable until, of course, my uncle left his brother and the
small farm he grew up on for the entirely different world of New Mexico.
Some 40 years later, and the two still talk almost daily, but instead of
side-by-side on horseback, they communicate cross-country from New Mexico to
Philadelphia. My uncle still resides in the same town he entered over 40 years
ago, Las Cruces New Mexico. Uncle Rob is a founder of a very large
trucking logistics company, which does work all across the country.
His five kids: Casey, Garret, Whitney, Buddy, and Tanner all went to the same
school, New Mexico State, and all entered the same profession afterwards, the
rodeo business. That’s right; I currently have two cousins who are
professional barrel racers and one who is a professional calf roper.
Anyways, one November, the Robinsons on the east side of the Mississippi
decided it would be fun to host the New Mexico Robinsons for a wonderful
Thanksgiving dinner.
So
in late November of that year, the New Mexico Robinsons arrived in the
Philadelphia suburbs with their cowboy hats and heavy accents. The
stories began and the next few days were full of entertaining tales about my
Uncle’s new venture into raising bucking bulls, his new several-thousand acre
ranch, the many snakes he kills with his shotgun, and the new spice-free diet
his wife has forced upon him.
But by far the most talked about event
this Thanksgiving was my Dad’s desire for a goose. My dad was tired of the
classic Turkey dinner and wanted something more original for Thanksgiving,
especially since his brother was in town. He was a bit tired of the thousands
of geese that were over-fertilizing his pond changing it from a beautiful body
of water to an algae-filled muck. Therefore, one morning my dad and his
brother, in true pilgrim fashion, grabbed their shotguns and got a goose as
they relived the days of hunting together as boys. They then cleaned the
goose and got it ready for Thanksgiving dinner the next day. I
thought we would never hear the end of my dad’s comments, “You know, you will
all love the goose, it’s so tender and I’m so tired of cooking turkey.”
The New Mexico Robinsons were all for it, yet my mom and sisters were not as
convinced
As Thanksgiving
Day finally came, the whole family got a step-by-step commentary on how to cook
a goose, why it’s so tender, and why it is so much better than Turkey.
When we finally sat down for dinner, my mom and sisters were still not too
convinced by the looks of the goose; it doesn’t have the beautiful golden-brown
color of a well cooked Turkey, but rather a dark purplish-brown color that is
rather discerning to an unaccustomed eater. But still, my father
insisted that everyone try the goose after all of his hard work to prepare it. My
mother had sneakily made sure that the goose was cooked in a sauce that
contained gluten; therefore, she had a legitimate excuse to not eat the goose
for fear of an allergic reaction. My sisters were not so lucky as they looked
on jealously at my mom who was merely eating veggies. Yet, they
persevered and took their first bites into the goose with everyone else.
Suddenly, my sister Courtenay worryingly interjected as she was biting down on
something hard in the goose, “Dad why is the goose crunchy?” He calmly
responded, “Oh it’s just the shotgun shell, just spit it out.”
She spit it out, but she was disgusted at what she had just bit into.
Somehow, after he had talked so much about this goose, he had failed to mention
to my sisters that the shell was still present. They were both so
disgusted that they immediately cleared their plates and ate veggies.
Fortunately for them, my
mom had been cooking a turkey secretly just in case. And so, after all that fuss about the goose, most people ended up
eating the completely unoriginal meal of Turkey and Cranberry sauce. In the end, we still had a great time and enjoyed lots of stories even
without the goose.
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