Thanks mostly to the hard work of My Dear Sweet Sainted Wife and Mother, Thanksgiving was another enjoyable day with pretty much everybody in the family around for the festivities. All I had to do was peel a bag of potatoes and pick up a little around the house as it was called for.
All three boys made it to town, from Columbia, Mo., and Denton, Texas, and middle son Kit brought granddaughters Alexandra and Leah-Bo down with him Wednesday.
Mom and Carl made the less strenuous trip from Steele, and little sister Karen was down from close to Columbia (Fulton) ... so that's about everybody.
Kit has to get back to his golf course outside Fulton for work Saturday, so the girls are going to stay a couple of days extra, and My Dear Sweet Sainted Wife will take them home (or meet up in St. Louis to swap them out) sometime Sunday.
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When I got home from work Wednesday afternoon, I wandered around to the back bedroom, and lo and behold, youngest son Zach was lying on his back in the bed with both granddaughters jumping up and down on his (rather large) belly like he was a trampoline.
I suppose as far as human beings go, Zach makes about as good a trampoline as you're likely to run across.
For some reason the girls thought this was the greatest fun thing to do they've ever been involved in, and they kept it up for close the 30 minutes.
I'll have to give Zach credit for having a very resilient belly. Although Leah-Bo probably doesn't weigh more than 30 pounds, Alexandra is fairly large for her age (7) and I guess weighs at least twice what Leah-Bo does, probably more.
Thirty minutes of that kind of belly-jumping is quite a beating.
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The two oldest boys and I snuck out to the golf course for a quick round from about 11-2 Thursday, fitting in with our usual practice of not sitting down to the table until around 4 p.m. for Thanksgiving dinner. The weather forecast was for sunny skies, light winds and temperatures reaching into the low 60s, just like the Wednesday forecast, but both days barely made it to 50 with never a peek of the sun.
But with my Christmas present from Jeffrey (two-handed golf gloves) it was actually quite pleasant, although awfully wet.
There's a guy on the PGA Tour (they call him Two-Glove Tommy Gainey) that plays with two black gloves even in warm weather, and he's made a bunch of money the last few years.
Whatever works.
By the way, thanks, Matt, for the loan of your golf cart.
We all three shot right at 80, but Kit edged me by one hole on our match play bet with a par on 18 that meant I had to carve the turkey this year (which I was going to do anyway).
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My Dear Sweet Sainted Wife and I have a routine of going out to eat on Saturday nights, and a couple of times in the last few months we've driven up to Caruthersville to eat at Lady Luck Casino.
We haven't made it down to the boat, but they do have some pretty decent food.
Particularly the baked sweet potatoes that they serve with a little bowl of what appears to be brown sugar mixed with melted butter.
That stuff is so good we incorporated a version of it into our Thanksgiving dinner this year, and it was a hit.
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By the time most folks read this, the Arkansas-LSU game will be over and another piece of this year's BCS puzzle will fall into place.
Since the game is in Baton Rouge and I'm only one game behind Herb in the Pigskin Payoff contest this year with only a week or so left to pick, I had to choose the Tigers over the Razorbacks in this one. But I'll root for the Hogs to pull out a win, although thinking back to the beating Alabama's defensive line put on poor Tyler Wilson (and considering that LSU has an even stronger pass rush), I just see a few too many turnovers and mistakes in the racket at Tiger Stadium for Arkansas to do any good.
But I could be wrong, and I hope I am.
dtennyson@blythevillecourier.com