Throwback Thanksgiving

One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while the turkey bakes in the oven. Oh the aroma! I’ve watched the parade for as long as I can remember. And I’ve attended the parade twice—once as a high school senior with my friend Anita (two Arkansas farm girls in The Big Apple!), and again twenty-five years later when my daughter was part of a drill team group that performed in the parade.

Today, I’m sharing a few throwback Thanksgiving pics…Here’s the high school picture (Nov 1979). I was part of the North Arkansas Conference Youth which I joined only to go on this Washington DC/New York. And by the way, I think every high school kid should spend time riding a bus across country to visit landmark sites.

This next bit of throwback ephemera came from my scrapbook. Three brilliant quotes that made the high school newspaper along with the tag from the sweater I bought at Macy’s. It was a cranberry-colored, fake cashmere pullover that I wore all through college. Note the Macy’s tag is proudly displayed next to my Bad Company concert tickets—a completely unrelated event (Memphis, Mid-South Coliseum).

Now on to New York, 2004. These are not the highest quality because, well, they’re old school instead of iPhone.

Tate wins most changed award (physically) although all of our lives have changed mightily since this trip. Kids are graduated, grown, have lives apart from us in cities apart from us. John and I left our careers, moved home to Arkansas, have begun reinventing ourselves in ways we are still trying to imagine.

In 1979, when I was the girl in the Washington DC photo, I couldn’t envision my life beyond that particular trip or that Bad Company concert in Memphis.

Do you watch This Is Us? One of my favorite things about the show is how the past and present (and future) is portrayed so expertly. In my life version of This Is Us, my high school self would be standing on the Capitol steps. Fast forward thirty-two or so years, we’d see my daughter (who worked in DC for a time) walking past the lion statue at the Capitol Reflecting Pool.

I didn’t realize until I looked back through my pictures that I had a picture of the Crocodile Hunter. He died two years later. It’s probably a good thing we can’t see into the future.

Wishing you peace and plenty this Thanksgiving.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 1935