The Porter family has celebrated the Thanksgiving Holiday after my bride and myself were married back in 1968 and most families that I know have celebrated the holiday as far back as I can remember. 

The pictures that I took of our Thanksgiving Holidays after the digital age came into its own, was stored on different personal computers hard drives of which I lost a few of them not backed up and those hard drives that survived, eventually ended up on back-up storage devices; floppy disk drive, USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs and of late, external hard drive devices.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THANKSGIVING

A brief history of our Thanksgiving Holiday (United States) from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:  Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November.  It has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens", to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26.  As a federal and popular holiday in the U.S., Thanksgiving is one of the major holidays of the year. Together with Christmas and New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader holiday season. The event that some Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in 1621. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days, and was attended by 53 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.  The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings"—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought, though the 1621 events were likely not a religious observation.

THANKSGIVING BAKED TURKEY CIRCA. 1978

Below is one of the earliest pixs I have located of my brides baked turkey in 1978 surrounded by frosted grapes, however she baked them back in the late 60s and early 1970s too.

Below is a pix which might have been her first baked turkey taken with a Polaroid camera and scanned which definitely goes way back into the early 1970s for sure:

According to the file tag, this was the first turkey that my bride baked.  The picture quality is very poor but I can make out a pan of her cornbread dressing, corn on the cob, deviled eggs, potato salad, maybe a fresh apple cake since that one was my favorite at the time.  Cranberry sauce is a must for turkey and see a plate of sliced cranberry sauce.  Can't make out what type of bread that is on the lower left in the pix.

Ok, I got side tracked just a little there, but you know I do that regularly if you have read any of my short stories.

THANKSGIVING 2000 IMAGES

Above pix taken on November 23, 2000 and it has some of our standard Thanksgiving holiday food and we definitely serve turkey and in our case, deep fried turkey and baked ham.  When I first started doing the deep fried turkey, my bride said that was my job from now own.  Doing the deep fried turkey frees up the oven for other things.  Most folks that have had a chance to taste a properly prepared deep fried turkey will prefer the deep fried turkey to oven baked turkey.  The only disadvantage between the two; the baked turkey offers a lot of pan juices which makes a much more flavorful giblet gravy, but that is the only advantage of the baked turkey in my humble opinion.

LEONARD AND WADE HOGUE

Sometime in the mid to late 1980s, I met Leonard and Wade Hogue while hunting at the Anson County airport and became friends with them and they were in our unofficial hunting club on land that Pines Davis owned.  They are from Archdale, NC and for the next seventeen years they would be invited to stop by when they were down hunting and and share a meal with the Porter family.  They were also able to attend several other events and Holidays and brought their wife and Wade brought his young daughter.  Below pix of Leonard Hogue on the left and Wade Hogue his son on the right, enjoying picking the bones of a turkey that was deep fried, just carved and ready for the turkey serving platter with both of them enjoying the remnants until the lunch was ready to be served.

DEEP FRYING TURKEY

Below pix of one of the deep fried turkeys ready to carve.  I deep fried two small turkeys.

ENJOYING THE MEAL WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS

After giving thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, everyone loaded their plates; no China plates unless the Styrofoam was made in China.........grin if you must!

The following attended our Thanksgiving 2000 lunch:  Bill and Ann Porter aka Mom and Pop, Laura, Keith and Trevor Huneycutt, Rose Tucker, Wink and Rachel Myers, Leonard Hogue, Wade Hogue, Joyce Porter aka my bride and yours truly Mickey Porter.

This was one of our smaller events, nonetheless we certainly enjoyed the wonderful food and fellowship with family and friends.

Web published by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 10-14-16.

LEAVING ON A SPIRITUAL NOTE