Thanksgiving . . . again.

I hate Thanksgiving. No, not the day itself or what it represents. It's the turkey.

I don't like turkey. A few slices of turkey breast on a sandwich now and again, or maybe even some chunks of smoked turkey on a barbeque salad. That I can handle. It's the whole "BIG BIRD" thing that makes dread this time of year.

I don't like turkey, and there's a good reason for it.

Dad worked for Grumman, and every year the company gave its employees a turkey for Thanksgiving. Dad always tried to find the smallest one he could. The smallest one he managed to find ever weighed a mere 18 pounds. When you grow up in a waste-not, want-not home, that means you kept eating leftover turkey is some form until it is really and truly finally gone. And then for Christmas, each year Grumman gave its employees another one.

That was already bad enough but one year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Dad won a turkey at the local tavern. (In fact, I think he may have won two back to back but managed to foist one off on his sister's family.)

Still, if you ate turkey for . . . six weeks straight (give or take a few days) you'd hate it, too.

So years (and years) later I'm now married and since I hate turkey, I suggested we have ham for Thanksgiving.

Nooooo! It wouldn't be right because his family always had turkey on Thanksgiving.

"Well," said yours truly. "Then you're going to be the one cooking it."

Unfortunately, I married a guy who, raised in a restaurant family, can. And for 30-some-odd-years, has made sure that on Thanksgiving, we . . . always . . . have . . . turkey. A big one.

To be continued . . .