The New Anything-But-Turkey-Diet Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories Janelle Meraz Hooper  (condensed version) And now, from the chicken-wire pen behind a restaurant on Ruston Way, a few words about the season from one soon to be seasoned...  Not again!  Every year we go through this, you guys start walking briskly up and down Ruston Way with your dogs, building up an appetite.  I see you out there, and from where I sit, some of you could stand to miss a few meals.  But, no, you’re starting to think about turkey (Yikes!) and dressing, aren’t you? Then, comes Christmas, and you want to eat a goose.  Easter, it’s some poor lamb or pig. Can’t you guys ever eat a carrot? Or how about a nice bowl of cold cereal? This year, I’m introducing the New Anything-But-Turkey-Diet. The idea is you eat anything but turkey. You won’t lose any weight, but neither will I (do ya get it?). Come on, folks, work with me here! While you’re out on the street in those funny outfits, running and working up an appetite, I’m pacing up and down this cage trying to make that old cook inside the restaurant think I’m too crazy to eat, and all he worries about is that I’m making myself tough. “Rest.” he says. “Take it easy.” he says. He’s even offered me this nice oval pan to nap in. Does he think I’m a dumb cluck? I’ve had one foot in the roaster before. Look, if you won’t try this New Anything-But-Turkey-Diet, then I gotta go somewhere where they don’t eat turkeys. I’m thinking maybe Hollywood. I hear they’ve got all kinds of turkeys down there driving around in fancy cars and playing in swimming pools and none of them get eaten. People down there eat sushi. Maybe you guys should try it. A little green seaweed, a little pickled red plum, it’s festive. Add some sticky rice and you’ll never miss me. Well, if I’m going to Hollywood, I’d better get movin’. I figure I’ll get out of this pen, jump in the water here, and float to California. Maybe I’ll just keep going, all the way to Mexico. Think about that seaweed and pickled red plum, now. Hmmm...wonder if I should leave a note?     Happy  Thanksgiving, ya'll!   Old Turkey Neck Janelle Meraz Hooper   Old turkey neck— That’s what it is. Wrinkled and bumpy— And covered in frizz.   I look in the mirror—                                  and what do I see? It isn’t the turkey— Dear Gussy, it’s me!

	The Thanksgiving stories are from my short story book, Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories. $12.95 USD, Order your copy from: Amazon.com Barnes & Noble.com iUniverse.com The author in her backyard...uh...pasture Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! Janelle A New-Fangled Thanksgiving Tradition Janelle Meraz Hooper    Thanksgiving dinner was always the same at Mom’s, and that was how we liked it. In a changing world that created new stress by the minute, we could always depend on Mom’s turkey to be perfectly browned, and her cornbread dressing nicely laced with celery, wild pecans, and raisins. Giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and peas filled in every spare spot on our plate. There were no tortillas on this day—I suspect because there just wasn’t enough free counter space in the kitchen to roll them out. The rolls we ate were the packaged kind that came in a paper tray and were already partially cooked. The cranberry sauce that replaced the normal salsa was canned and always served on our fancy glass tray that had been around since Roosevelt put a turkey in every pot (or was that a chicken?). Okay, so it wasn’t a gourmet meal, but it was good—and the large family that came to share it thought it was perfect. Almost every time. But one year, when my mom and her sister were both close to eighty, my aunt arrived from California and brought her new-fangled ideas about tradition with her. Thanksgiving morning, my Aunt Pat got up early and beat my mom to the kitchen, determined to “California-ize” our turkey dinner. The first item on the menu that she changed was the cranberries―she used real ones. Mom was suspicious when she looked at the marble-sized fruit bubbling on the stove with bits of fresh orange peel. She didn’t like the looks of those orange shavings. To her, they looked like something that slipped past the food inspectors.  Mom believed cranberry sauce should be pushed out of a can with those little ridges that showed her where to cut the slices. “No one will know what this stuff is.” she worried. “This isn’t what they’re used to. And it smells funny.” My aunt stood her ground. Resigned to a cranberry failure, Mom went to the living room to relax and read the paper. She didn’t see my aunt pull my mom’s traditional cornbread dressing out of the oven and stir in a bag of fresh spinach. The last thing my aunt did before she left the kitchen was replace the table butter with an unidentified soy product she’d brought in her handbag from Santa Barbara that didn’t look, taste, or smell like butter. The family was sitting down at the table when Mom pulled the dressing out of the oven and discovered that it’d turned green. Her sister told her it was the latest thing in California, and much healthier. Mom was appalled and predicted, “No one will eat it.” And they didn’t. That bowl was passed around the table so often it looked like it was in its own special green orbit, and no one would touch it. On one of its last flights around the table, my cousin reluctantly put a spoonful on her toddler’s plate, but the kid broke out in tears, so my cousin took it off and hid it in her napkin. Finally, my aunt mumbled something about taking the dressing to the kitchen to heat it up. It never returned. The fancy cranberry sauce met much the same fate. When it was passed around the table, everyone would try to get a portion that was not laced with orange peel. No one succeeded. Soon it entered its own orbit, crisscrossing the orbit of the green cornbread dressing. Around and around the table it flew until the contents of the bowl were just a fragrant red blur circling the Planet Table, not unlike the rings around Saturn.  Mom and her sister are both gone now, and I think of them often, especially around the holidays. Looking back, maybe green dressing and orange cranberries wouldn’t have been that awful. I should have at least tasted them. Although, sister rivalry being what it was, I’m sure Mom would have never forgiven me if I had. It has been years since that dinner, but the saga of the New-Fangled Thanksgiving Tradition lives on to this day. No one in our family will accept an invitation for Thanksgiving dinner without first inquiring, “What’s in your cranberries—and what color is your cornbread dressing?”

	Soldiers Give Writer Reasons to be Thankful from Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories Janelle Meraz Hooper   When I was a kid, I was raised in a large military family in a small town next to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Half of my family was Catholic and the other half Baptists (don’t ask!), but once a year, we got together at a large table to make a turkey suffer. My uncle, the Head Baptist, had such a reputation for praying so long every year that my grandmother always brought a rosary to the table so she’d have something to do while he blessed everyone but the pope. But, to be fair, he always had a lot to pray about. That year, I had three relatives overseas. One was in Korea, one in Japan, and one in Alaska. Well, I know Alaska isn’t technically a foreign country, but we worried about him just as much as the other two. So my uncle would pray and pray, then, when even his stomach started to growl, he’s say, “Amen!” While he filled his plate, he’d start around the table, asking each person to share what they were thankful for that year. I usually said something dopey like, “I was thankful for my mother and my new poodle socks.” And I was. Truly. It was short and sweet, and he’d move on to my cousin, who always said something that his mom had helped him rehearse, like he was thankful for the farmers who worked so hard to provide the feast we were going to enjoy. I always kicked him under the table after he said something like that. Well, I’ve grown, and at sixty, I have a whole list of things I’m thankful for. If he asked me now, we’d be there until a green scum floated on the cranberry sauce: I’m thankful for a loving, healthy family. I’m thankful for this beautiful planet. I’m thankful for this country. I’m thankful for those old geezers who wrote all that “We the People” stuff. And I’m thankful for the men and women who protect it everyday. As I write this, it’s weeks until Thanksgiving, and well, with the world situation the way it is, some of you may not be sitting at your family’s table this year. Although I wish deployments weren’t necessary, I’m thankful for a strong fighting force that is able to keep the peace wherever it’s needed. Most of all, I thank God for letting me be born in this great country, enabling me to see my child and grandchildren grow up safe and healthy. Oh, sure, I crab about the politicians and what’s going on with our government, doesn’t everybody? But usually about then, they have a story about Afghanistan or Iraq on TV. Then (too often it seems), I see an American soldier pushing through the sand, probably praying he or she doesn’t step on a landmine. I always think that if I’m watching, maybe their parents are too, and how stressful that must be for them. So, to the men and women who are out on a limb sometimes and think nobody cares, I do. Lots of us do. And we’re thankful not only for you, but to your families who make such great sacrifices so that our children and grandchildren can play in our backyards without fear. Happy Holidays, dear brave men and women, from my heart to yours. Come home safely.