For many people in this country, Thanksgiving day means two things, eating a lot of food, and FOOTBALL. I like food, but not to excess. I’m not at all a fan of sports, and I hate watching TV.
Sometime ago, I discovered, quite by accident, that the major holidays, especially the Winter ones, afford a wonderful riding opportunity. If one can get out early in the day, there is almost no traffic. It may be cold. It may be raining. But the roads are all but empty. This makes for some good riding. One of the significant joys of riding in north Georgia is that we just might get a really fine day on Thanksgiving.
There have been Thanksgiving Day rides that took place in snow! I’ve gone out early in the day, and had a blast in the cold, with social, family, and friend time to look forward to. It’s good to get an early ride in. Besides, it tends to reinforce one’s status as a complete wacko. That’s important to maintain among family and friends. It helps them to make allowances for other abnormal behavior. I’ve heard it, when family and folk weren’t aware that I was in earshot. Usually, it’s something like, “Oh that’s just him. He’s just a little strange. You know, he’s always riding that bicycle…” It’s almost as good as having a “Get Out of Jail Free Card.”
One of the many benefits to this is that I’m also allowed and permitted to escape from time to time during the day. That’s a good thing. I’m kind of a gregarious individual by nature, but I can only take so much of people, in a crowd, in an overheated space, shouting at each other. So I like to get out where it’s cool, fresh, and quite. I make these escapes during the day, and they are dismissed and overlooked.
I am not permitted to go for a ride during the festive gatherings. It took me a while to learn that. I’ve learned it. Folks get insulted and upset if I change clothes and saddle up just before the big bird is served, or shortly after it.
Of course, I will never top the “Year I got the Christmas Tree on Thanksgiving Day.” I had a plan. It seemed (to me) a good one. We were going to have a big communal feed and celebration at my parent’s place. I had been assigned to procure a Christmas tree. (In my family, this was to be done on, or about the time of the late November Feasting.)
I’d been working an incredibly demanding new job. As a consequence, my riding had been suffering. Of course, I had Turkey Day off. I arrived at my parent’s place fairly early in the day. I helped my Dad with some wood splitting and hauling firewood, and then I went to work on my own project.
A bit of digging around in the basement, and I unearthed the old Radio Flyer wagon. A short bit of work with tools, rope, and duct produced a passable makeshift trailer. No one noticed me changing into my cold weather riding gear.
The trip out, with the wagon pulled behind with rope was tedious and frustrating. Every time I slowed or stopped, the wretched thing tried to pass me, or ran into the back of me. But that only lasted a short while. Most of the trip to the tree farm was uphill. Steeply uphill!
At the tree farm, I strolled about until I located a suitably large and full tree. I cut the thing down. By then it was starting to snow. The tree farm folk where most helpful. They tied the tree up in a tight bundle, and helped me secure the thing to the wagon, so that the wagon was located about at a point about two thirds of the way up the thing’s length. We then fashioned a lashing securing the base stump of the three to my luggage rack. It was awkward, but manageable. Barely.
By the time I got down off the mountain, and through town, it was snowing. Snowing hard. I was sliding all over the road, with my ungainly burden. Worse, it had to be getting close to time for the family to sit down.
I clumped in the door, kicking snow from my shoes. “Where have you been?” my mother demanded.
“I was out getting the Christmas Tree,” I replied.
Nothing would serve but for the whole family, and assorted friends to troop out and regard my hauling arrangement and the green load upon it.
My younger sister summed the whole thing up. “You know you’re certifiable,” she said, “But you’ve really done it. You should be in big trouble, but they can’t touch you for doing that. Congratulations Big Brother. Happy Thanksgiving.”
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