Thanksgiving Surprise

I’d love to tell you that my Thanksgiving Surprise involves a long-lost relative coming home or the end of a falling out with a friend that was celebrated over a slice of gramma’s pumpkin pie.

Alas, this story didn’t come from The Hallmark Channel.

To set the stage, you have to understand that after my family moved here from Memphis, we’d often go back to West Tennessee for holidays and special occasions. Just before we headed out of town during this particularly cold November, I found an interesting orb-shaped object in my front yard. I stuck it next to the stacks of Topps baseball cards and lines of Hot Wheels card that adorned my room in those days.

Going to see the Gary Family in Memphis was, in a way, a big surprise in its own regard. At a true family gathering, I’d be welcomed by both grandparents, hugged and teased (not necessarily in that order) by 6 uncles and 6 aunts and entertained by up to 12 cousins.

When I say it was a family gathering, it was a family gathering. The Gary farm was a great place to have such events and a fun place for a little shaver to explore.

I remember summer picnics in the barbecue area just off to the front  of the house; I remember my dad rescuing me when I froze and nearly didn’t throw a firecracker (that happened just off the front porch) and, on this Thanksgiving occasion, I remember playing with cousins under the great wall of photos that hung in the main room just to the right of the stairs that took you up into the dining room.

I loved exploring the place where my dad and his siblings grew up. We had a great Thanksgiving that year and I treasured every visit with my relatives! Soon, it was time to head back to East Tennessee when the weekend was winding down.

The drive home at the end of that Thanksgiving weekend provided a little surprise, as we encountered freak late-autumn snowstorm on the Cumberland Plateau. We had to slow down and navigate the treacherous terrain. Eventually, we made it home fairly late on that Sunday night.

I opened the door to my bedroom and there all across the wall was a collection of nearly 100 baby praying mantises waiting to welcome me home. The orb, you see, had hatched.

Left to its own devices out in the cold, the mantis egg probably would’ve lasted until spring as it was designed to do. But when I brought it inside to the super-heated climate of our home, I reset the time clock. And at some point that weekend, the egg popped open and out came the critters.

As much as I might’ve liked to have them for small pets, that was not to be. Unfortunately, we had to vacuum them, quickly, before the fanned out down the hall. Really, there just wasn’t a choice.

In later years, I’ve seen that those orb-like objects are sold for healthy amounts of money for farmers who want to deploy the mantesis as organic pest control (or to mantis enthusiasts who just want to have them around).

That weekend, I was neither. I was just a little kid…with a big Thanksgiving Surprise.

JG

Originally posted 11/21/2012