Staton: Thanksgiving offers chance to relive old memories, create new ones

I will be going to my daughter Kim’s for Thanksgiving. She loves to cook the Thanksgiving meal, and it always looks like something out of Southern Living as we sit down to eat. Her sister and I will bring two dishes to help out. I am to take dumplings and dressing.
She is going to cook a turducken. In case you are wondering what a turducken is, it is a deboned turkey with a deboned duck inside the turkey and a deboned chicken inside the duck. As you slice through the turducken, you get all three in one slice. I am looking forward to my first turducken. What I am also looking forward to is her cranberry salad. I think she makes the best.
I am going to take this opportunity to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. I am so thankful that I am going to get to spend another Thanksgiving with my family. You know we take so much for granted every day of our lives that we fail to be thankful for life itself.
I also want to tell you how thankful I am for each of you who tell me how much you enjoy my articles and let me know that you are praying for me as I battle cancer. While I also know that I will get to spend this Thanksgiving with my family, there will be many of you who won’t. I know that holidays can sometimes be sad in many ways, but I hope that this year you will focus on what you do have to be thankful for.
One day last week, my friend Flo called to talk. She and I were talking about life in general and she told me her twin brother, Lawrence, was very ill in a Lexington hospital. I was saddened to hear this. Then we were just talking about how we were going to have to admit we were getting old and the holidays. (These are the types of conversations you sometimes have at our age.)
During the conversation, she related to me that she won a country ham at her bank. We discussed the pros and cons of cooking the ham herself or taking it to get cooked. I told her the best ham I ever cooked was one I put in a lard can filled with water and put in a 16-ounce Pepsi. The can’s contents were boiled for one hour, then wrapped in layers of old quilts and let set for 24 hours.
After the ham was taken out, I topped it with brown sugar and pineapple and baked it long enough to melt the sugar for a glaze. (I didn’t tell her I had a ring as round as the lard can on the hardwood floor in the dining room where I sat the can to finish the cooking.) She said that also was how her mom used to cook them. Then it hit me — where in the world would you find a 25-pound lard can to cook a ham in these days? We both had a good laugh over that one, and that method was soon eliminated.
It is still fun to reminisce about the good old days. Many memories still arise about Thanksgiving days with my parents and siblings and will remain with me forever. It is even funny how even the hardships now are good memories. Many I look back on have become humorous now when they enter my mind.
I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday. God bless you, everyone.