When Being Late to Thanksgiving Went Terribly Wrong

On this episode of Our American Stories, everyone has a funny Thanksgiving story, but this one still makes Stephen Rusiniak cringe. He promised his mom he’d be on time for Thanksgiving dinner. He wasn’t. What followed was a mix of family drama, cold turkey, and a lesson in what it means to keep your word.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is our American Stories, and today we have a
feature from one of our regular contributors, Stephen Rossiniac. This
is a special Thanksgiving piece entitled an Awfully Awkward Thanksgiving.
Here's Stephen sharing his story.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Don't be late, she said, as we walked towards the
kitchen door. Okay, okay, we got it, Mom, I answered
for myself, my dad, and for my brother Jimmy as
we walked out the door. Of course, we had no
intention of disappointing her. After all, as always, Mom was

(00:48):
working hard to make our Thanksgiving Day dinner special for
our family and for our guests, including this year my
new girlfriend Karen. We would absolutely be home on time
for Mom. Well, at least that was the plan. There
was something warm and wonderful about my childhood Thanksgiving mornings,

(01:10):
things like the aroma of the bird that Mom had
prepped and placed into the oven long before I was
even out of bed, already filling the house with the
succulent scent of roasted turkey, And how she was busily
attending to a myriad of other early morning preparations in
advance of our family's feast. Me and my brothers Paul

(01:31):
and Jimmy and our sister Anne were extra careful to
stay out of Mom's way as we eagerly anticipated all
of the food and goodies yet to come, especially the
pies and the sugar coated peanut butterfilled dates. While we
were hunkered down watching the annually televised Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade,

(01:54):
our dad would be tossing logs into the blaze that
he'd lit earlier in the living room fireplace. But one year,
as Mom was busy doing all of the usual things
that she did early every Thanksgiving morning, Dad, Jimmy and
I left to go cut down some trees. Dad and

(02:14):
I had partnered with a friend in a part time
tree cutting business, working solely for one developer. Our job
was to clear just one or two building lots per month,
easy enough for weekend work. That is, until we received
a call the night before Thanksgiving informing us that one
particular lot needed to be cleared by Saturday morning. Now,

(02:38):
Dad suggested that we get a jump on the job
by working a few hours on Thanksgiving morning and then
finishing up the next day. While I wasn't overly enthusiastic
about the idea, Dad's plan had merit reluctantly, we agreed
to four go and he previously planned television parade viewing

(02:59):
to go in the woods that, as it turned out,
was our first mistake. The lot to be cleared was
off a small, hard packed path at the end of
a narrow paved the road. The work itself was straightforward.
Drop a tree, chip the brush, pile the logs. Repeat.

(03:20):
We worked fast, and you know what, Dad was right.
Within a few hours, the trees were down. Keeping a
watchful eye on the hour, and satisfied that we could
easily make it home by one, we decided to load
our big, old, racked bodied relic of a truck, the Beast,
as we called it, with as much of the wood

(03:41):
that we had just cut down as time would allow.
My brother Jimmy maneuvered the Beast along the path, stopping
every so often for loading, and when the truck could
hold no more, he continued up the path around the
bend and out of sight, looking for a place to
safely turn around, but as luck would have it, there

(04:03):
wasn't one, so he came back all the way back
to the just cleared lot in reverse. We decided that
rather than backing the Beast all the way out to
the pave the road. Jimmy would be better off to
just jockey the truck back and forth a few times,
a couple of small turns, just enough so he could

(04:24):
turn the beast around and then we could all go home. This, however,
turned out to be mistake number two. Our plan, while
good in theory, failed miserably in execution because the moment
the rear tires left the stability of the hard packed path,
they sank completely. We should have just left the truck

(04:46):
right there, possibly returning after dinner, or better yet, the
next day, because either would have been a better choice. Unfortunately,
neither was what we chose. We decided to free the
beast Mistake number three. We emptied all of the just
loaded logs, attached tow chains to our sunken beast into

(05:10):
the other two trucks, and then, ever so slowly, we
pulled our faithful friend out of its muddy confines to freedom.
But there was little room for celebration. I happened to
notice the hour it was already after two. Our final
and most unforgivable mistake. We arrived home not long afterwards,

(05:35):
and just as I feared, Mom was utterly annoyed with
our mud covered late arriving weekend woodcutters, we quickly cleaned
up for dinner, and it was finally served some time
after three, more than an hour late. Aside from saying
grace and the occasional request to pass one of the
food laden plates and platters around the table, it was

(05:57):
an awfully awkward and quiet thanks Giving dinner. In the end,
I guess you could say that everything worked out because
by the time the leftovers were brought back out for
round two later that night, Mom had mostly forgiven us.
Some years later, and as she was recalling that memorable

(06:18):
holiday fiasco with Jimmy's fiance Pat, I was told that
she did so with sort of a smile. By the
way that girl I invited to our infamous holiday family feast. Well,
apparently the events of that day weren't enough to scare
her off, because these days, on Thanksgiving morning, Karen can

(06:39):
be found attending to a myriad of early morning preparations
in advance of our family's feast, while I'm tossing logs
into the blaze that I'd lit earlier in our family
room fireplace. And of course I still eagerly anticipate all
of the food and goodies yet to come, especially the
pies and the sugarcoated peanut butterfilled dates while hunkered down

(07:04):
still watching the annually televised Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And
when it's time for dinner, you can be sure of this,
I am not going to be late. Ever, I promise.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
An awfully awkward Thanksgiving here on Our American Story. This
is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories. Every day
on this show we tell stories of history, faith, business, love, loss,
and your stories. Send us your story, small or large
to our email oas at Ouramericanstories dot com. That's oas

(07:48):
at Ouramericanstories dot com. We'd love to hear them and
put them on the air. Our audience loves them too,