Here’s a little story from a couple years ago to go with your morning coffee…
“HAPPY THANKSGIVING!”
It was after dinner, about nap-thirty if you get my drift, when Jubal Blue bellowed across the driveway like he meant to wake up the whole piney woods. I held up my hands, trying to settle him before he scared the neighbor’s old tabby off her front stoop.
“Hey, hey… how about a quiet thanks-giving,” I said.
He settled a little, and I leaned on the hood of his ’72 blue Chevy. “You know, Jubal, sometimes the best thanks is the kind that doesn’t holler. Just a few folks, a slow meal, that small moment where you realize you’re still here, still breathing, still blessed in more ways than you can count.”
Jubal just grinned and slammed his truck door. “Whatever…”
Then he tipped back his cap, gave me that mischievous twinkle, and said, “I got a story for your digestive amusement.”
And with that, he launched in:
You remember my cousin Chisel Purdy? Now look, that whole thing with the tractor was a misunderstanding. He was borrowing it. Anyway, that boy decided he was gonna deep-fry a turkey for his Mawmaw Faye like the pros. Well, the TikTok pros, anyhow.
He got the turkey in a raffle down at the Fina station… or maybe it came out the firehouse freezer. Either way, that bird had seen things. The thing was the size of a kindergartener, and he left it in the deep freeze till this morning. Said it just needed “a little mornin’ sun,” so he plopped it on the tailgate.
Later that mornin’, they set up the picnic table and he fired up a 55-gallon drum of oil till it hissed like the devil. Then he rigged that turkey to a twisted shirt hanger danglin’ from one o’ those drones he’d slapped together with duct tape and hope, bought off “some dude behind the Family Dollar.”
Things went real smooth—’til they didn’t.
The blast rattled windows clear into town. The turkey shot straight up on a geyser of boiling oil and flaming drone shrapnel, arcing over into Mudlick’s Pond with a splash so clean it oughta get a medal. Ol’ Duke the hound seized the moment to lope off with a whole loaf of Wonder Bread.
Everybody just stood there starin’ at the pond like it owed ’em an explanation.
They righted the picnic table and moved to Plan B, Mawmaw Faye’s emergency stash of Vienna sausages and Saltines, while Chisel muttered about tradition bein’ “not nothin’ anymore anyways,” just as tires crunched on the gravel.
Two deputies stepped out, hands on their hips, looking at the burnt crater where the fryer used to be.
Deputy Thibodeaux said, “Chisel… what exactly was the plan here?”
Chisel held up his Vienna like a visual aid.
“Well, Thib, it did involve turkey.”
Before they could process that, the pond rippled, slow and deliberate. And up came Mudlick the alligator himself, old as sin and not givin’ a lick, floatin’ along with that whole deep-fried turkey locked in his jaws like he’d reserved it ahead of time.
Deputy Boudreaux blinked. “Is that… evidence?”
Mudlick slipped under with his prize, leaving only bubbles and a little whisper of smoke drifting across the top.
Chisel wiped his hands on his jeans.
“Well, boys,” he said, “looks like Mudlick’s havin’ the real Thanksgiving. We’re just the pre-game.”
They stood there munchin’ Viennas while the deputies tried to decide whether to file a report, call Wildlife & Fisheries, or just get in the car and pretend none of this ever happened.
Happy (quiet) Thanksgiving, y’all.
Now pass the pie and hush.
That’s it for now. Thanks for showing up. It matters.
Some inspiration came from Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses.”
And you can read more from Jubal Blue here.
Veni, Vidi, Scripsi 