Talking Turkey

With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away, I thought I’d share a relationship tale of two turkeys.

The story begins in May 2015, when Terrie and I started dating. We’d known each other about 18 months thanks to our Wednesday night pool league, and we realized once we began dating that this could be serious. But as spring turned to summer and summer to fall, we recognized a problem.

We both loved Thanksgiving. We also both loved cooking the turkey and we each had different methods. I stuff the bird; Terrie dresses.

By Halloween, we’d weathered some ups and downs—OK, let’s call them what they were, multiple break-ups—in the relationship. Then, one day in early November as we approached our first Thanksgiving together, to be held in my house, things got real.

We were in the kitchen when I told her I had something important to share. She looked at me with a touch of fear in her eyes. I saw it and my eyes twinkled.

"Terrie,” I said, taking her hands, “I want you to know how serious I am in this relationship. I’ve decided to let you do the turkey.”

As I recall, she burst out laughing (or was that when I proposed the following July? Maybe it was both.) and accepted my offer. But that day, she also made a pledge: I would do the turkey the following year.

Ironically, we had one more break-up in us even after that first Thanksgiving. But the final break-up lasted just two days. We’ve been together and alternating Thanksgiving Day turkey duties ever since, even during the height of COVID-19 in 2020 (my year) when it was just the two of us and I wound up doing something really different, smoking the bird).

To my beautiful, sassy, loving wife: May your bird this year be as magnificent as ever, and our table be filled with love, gratitude, friendship and joy.

And if I may, a universal ask: Let this Thanksgiving be a day of peace for all. Happy Turkey Day, everyone!