Dropping Like Flies

“Dropping like flies” was the comment of one of the grandkids describing our family Thanksgiving vacation at Woodsong. The holiday started early when a call from Goreville Tuesday morning said that Gerry and Vickie with Geri Ann and their grandson Aidan were almost here from Georgia. We happily invited them and Erin to lunch with us at Honeybakers, so I had a real birthday party. The Georgia gang were all excited to go see Drew Johnson play in the Crab Orchard annual Turkey Tournament, and Geri Ann was able to have her long-time Johnston City friend Cece over to spend the night with her.

On Wednesday I made pecan and pumpkin pies, and we had chili for lunch. By Wednesday evening, David had brought Sam out from Marion, Leslie had arrived from Belmont, the Archibalds were down from Aurora and the Taylors had arrived from central Illinois with Mary Ellen bringing three large versions of a marvelous casserole. Leslie made our salad, and I served canned peaches and a little store-bought cake for dessert—not letting anyone touch the counter full of pies saved for the next day, Jeannie, Rick, Elijah, and Cecelie arrived during the night. Katherine and David came out the next day. Before I went to bed while the others had gone to see Drew play again, I washed and prepared the turkey for the oven early the next morning.

I had the small upstairs oven at 350 degrees and the turkey roasting by 5:15 on Thursday morning and stumbled back to bed for a couple more hours sleep. I figured the turkey would be done by 11 and would have time to sit before Gerry carved it for us. The only hitch on Thursday was when I stumbled back into the kitchen shortly before 8. I discovered we had had a power surge that turned off the oven with the baking turkey. (This had never happened to me before.) Not knowing how long the oven had been off, I worried if it would be done by noon but quickly had it going again. (I knew Gerry and Vickie and their families would be going to an evening dinner at the Johnsons, so I did not want to serve the noon dinner too late.) But all went well with all the help I had, and we were eating earlier than usual before 1 o’clock.

Mary Ellen arrived from their camper with all the ingredients to make a both a broccoli casserole and a cauliflower casserole in the downstairs oven, which we’d moved over from our old house. (The huge pan of dressing, green bean casserole, and sweet potato casserole filled up the main upstairs oven.) Jeannie had carried in a yummy dessert and ingredients for a special salad. The Archibalds brought a spinach dip with chips that went over great while people waited for the feast to begin.

People were getting up at their own pace (except when someone made too much noise and awakened them), Gerald was busy giving Aidan, Maddux, and even little Payton tractor and “mule” rides. I think Aidan enlisted Sam, Elijah, and Trent in various activities including digging in his lime pile. And Maddux, who is now talking in sentences, was given his very own little shovel for the lime pile. The men were visiting and having fun while the women of the family cooked, enjoyed the little ones, and visited. The meal was bountiful and people were thankful for many things as evidenced by the blessings written on construction paper turkey feathers that the kids posted on Mary Ellen’s turkey poster hung in the dining room.

As we rested after the dinner clean up, the shoppers in the family scoured the newspaper for all the Black Friday ads and got excited about the fantastic bargains. Before they knew it, plans for a competition developed. Vickie and Tara have evidently worked cooperatively on this before, and Mary Ellen was enlisted with Erin to form another team and see who could outdo the other team in obtaining bargains. Since the toy store was to open before midnight and others continued afterwards, I realized this was an all-night activity, which was amazing to me.

What I did not know until reported the next morning when this crew came giggling into the kitchen before a little sleep (very little) downstairs, Erin had not shown up. She had phoned Geri Ann that she really did not want to go once she quickly got the comforter and towels she needed for her new place. Geri Ann thought there was a simple solution—just don’t go. So Mary Ellen’s team lost and she was particularly kind to go ahead and get her small kitchen appliances on sale for Erin at yet another store.

As they met up at Steak and Shake for a break, they plotted revenge for Erin’s backing out. Someone had told them a story about someone making money last year by claiming limited large items, which they really did not want to buy, and then before checking out giving the item over to another hapless customer for $20 or so, which still made it a cheap purchase for that customer. They had pondered if that was not illegal. So as they took their break, they decided that they needed to phone Erin and tell her they had tried it on some item and they had been arrested. They were going to ask her to come to the Marion police station but whatever she did not to tell her daddy because then he would never let the women go shopping again on Black Friday! They had quite a story cooked up to tell her only to have their revenge aborted when Erin had her phone turned off. (So I would not get unwanted night-time phone calls, Erin reported the next day.) But I think they had plenty of fun dreaming up this revenge and talking about it the next day.

One of the new aspects of this holiday gathering was all the teen drivers. These kids decided they wanted in on the Black Friday excitement. They piled into Leslie’s or someone’s car and went looking for fights in the stores as peaceful Elijah explained as they ran around town taking movies and having a great time standing in lines where they intended to buy nothing, and of course visiting Steak and Shake. They came in hours before the adult shoppers and eventually went to bed on various couches, but I did not even hear them since I was sleeping peacefully.

Peacefully that is before one grandchild came in to whisper he had just been sick. I sent him back to his couch and to make a long story short, I mopped a floor and had only gotten back to bed an hour or so before the adult shoppers came home in with great high spirits. I had not gone back to sleep because when I went back to bed, I remembered the oven going off with the turkey. I had horror visions that maybe this was food poisoning from that cold oven after starting the turkey cooking and what if I had poisoned my whole family? Jeannie kept reassuring me that from her experience in her college days with a major food company at a summer camp where hundreds had food poisoning, that was not what was happening even though we found out at breakfast that Bryan had been up during the night also with little Aidan throwing up.

As it turned out, the early sick ones were through the worst within 24 hours as is typical of stomach flu victims, but they all needed an extra day before the color came back to their cheeks and they were no longer weak. They had unintentionally spread it to the Johnson family so then I knew it was not my turkey. The next night the teens, who had not gotten the flu yet and felt like running around again, went to a movie in town, and Gerry had to go get Geri Ann when she became sick there.

On and on it went. Let’s see—Aidan, Sam, Leslie, Geri Ann, Erin, Gerry, Cecelie, Jeannie, Brian, Mary Ellen, Brianna, me, and finally Elijah right before they left this morning. The Archibalds had such a bug a week or so ago and seemed to be immune except for Aidan, who had spent that week at Gerry and Vickie’s. I am hoping they did not get the flu on their long way home today as Rick did as the Eilers traveled back to Freeport. Katherine, David, Vickie and Trent seemed to have escaped so far. Gerald had gotten a head cold on Wednesday and it kept getting worse each day and he became weak but did not seem to catch the flu. We were truly dropping like flies and it has not been a pretty picture at Woodsong for the last two days. My washing machine is running now and probably will be for the next day or two with blankets and towels. Everyone has agreed it has been a Thanksgiving to remember.



























“Dropping like flies” was the comment of one of the grandkids describing our family Thanksgiving vacation at Woodsong. The holiday started early when a call from Goreville Tuesday morning said that Gerry and Vickie with Geri Ann and their grandson Aidan were almost here from Georgia. We happily invited them and Erin to lunch with us at Honeybakers, so I had a real birthday party. The Georgia folks were all excited to go see Drew Johnson play in the Crab Orchard annual Turkey Tournament, and Geri Ann was able to have her long-time Johnston City friend Cece over to spend the night with her.

On Wednesday I made pecan and pumpkin pies, and we had chili for lunch. By Wednesday evening, David had brought Sam out from Marion, Leslie had arrived from Belmont, the Archibalds were down from Aurora and the Taylors had arrived from central Illinois with Mary Ellen bringing three large versions of a marvelous casserole. Leslie made our salad, and I served canned peaches and a little store-bought cake for dessert—not letting anyone touch the counter full of pies saved for the next day, Jeannie, Rick, Elijah, and Cecelie arrived during the night. Katherine and David came out the next day. Before I went to bed while the others had gone to see Drew play again, I washed and prepared the turkey for the oven early the next morning.

I had the small upstairs oven at 350 degrees and the turkey roasting by 5:15 on Thursday morning and stumbled back to bed for a couple more hours sleep. I figured the turkey would be done by 11 and would have time to sit before Gerry carved it for us. The only hitch on Thursday was when I stumbled back into the kitchen shortly before 8. I discovered we had had a power surge that turned off the oven with the baking turkey. (This had never happened to me before.) Not knowing how long the oven had been off, I worried if it would be done by noon but quickly had it going again. (I knew Gerry and Vickie and their families would be going to an evening dinner at the Johnsons, so I did not want to serve the noon dinner too late.) But all went well with all the help I had, and we were eating earlier than usual before 1 o’clock.

Mary Ellen arrived from their camper with all the ingredients to make a both a broccoli casserole and a cauliflower casserole in the downstairs oven, which we’d moved over from our old house. (The huge pan of dressing, green bean casserole, and sweet potato casserole filled up the main upstairs oven.) Jeannie had carried in a yummy dessert and ingredients for a special salad. The Archibalds brought a spinach dip with chips that went over great while people waited for the feast to begin.

People were getting up at their own pace (except when someone made too much noise and awakened them), Gerald was busy giving Aidan, Maddux, and even little Payton tractor and “mule” rides. I think Aidan enlisted Sam, Elijah, and Trent in various activities including digging in his lime pile. And Maddux, who is now talking in sentences, was given his very own little shovel for the lime pile. The men were visiting and having fun while the women of the family cooked, enjoyed the little ones, and visited. The meal was bountiful and people were thankful for many things as evidenced by the blessings written on construction paper turkey feathers that the kids posted on Mary Ellen’s turkey poster hung in the dining room.

As we rested after the dinner clean up, the shoppers in the family scoured the newspaper for all the Black Friday ads and got excited about the fantastic bargains. Before they knew it, plans for a competition developed. Vickie and Tara have evidently worked cooperatively on this before, and Mary Ellen was enlisted with Erin to form another team and see who could outdo the other team in obtaining bargains. Since the toy store was to open before midnight and others continued afterwards, I realized this was an all-night activity, which was amazing to me.

What I did not know until reported the next morning when this crew came giggling into the kitchen before a little sleep (very little) downstairs, Erin had not shown up. She had phoned Geri Ann that she really did not want to go once she quickly got the comforter and towels she needed for her new place. Geri Ann thought there was a simple solution—just don’t go. So Mary Ellen’s team lost and she was particularly kind to go ahead and get her small kitchen appliances on sale for Erin at yet another store.

As they met up at Steak and Shake for a break, they plotted revenge for Erin’s backing out. Someone had told them a story about someone making money last year by claiming limited large items, which they really did not want to buy, and then before checking out giving the item over to another hapless customer for $20 or so, which still made it a cheap purchase for that customer. They had pondered if that was not illegal. So as they took their break, they decided that they needed to phone Erin and tell her they had tried it on some item and they had been arrested. They were going to ask her to come to the Marion police station but whatever she did not to tell her daddy because then he would never let the women go shopping again on Black Friday! They had quite a story cooked up to tell her only to have their revenge aborted when Erin had her phone turned off. (So I would not get unwanted night-time phone calls, Erin reported the next day.) But I think they had plenty of fun dreaming up this revenge and talking about it the next day.

One of the new aspects of this holiday gathering was all the teen drivers. These kids decided they wanted in on the Black Friday excitement. They piled into Leslie’s or someone’s car and went looking for fights in the stores as peaceful Elijah explained as they ran around town taking movies and having a great time standing in lines where they intended to buy nothing, and of course visiting Steak and Shake. They came in hours before the adult shoppers and eventually went to bed on various couches, but I did not even hear them since I was sleeping peacefully.

Peacefully that is before one grandchild came in to whisper he had just been sick. I sent him back to his couch and to make a long story short, I mopped a floor and had only gotten back to bed an hour or so before the adult shoppers came home in with great high spirits. I had not gotten back to sleep because when I went back to bed, I remembered the oven going off with the turkey. I had horror visions that maybe this child had food poisoning from that cold oven after starting the turkey cooking and what if I had poison my whole family? Jeannie kept reassuring me that from her experience in her college days with a major food company at a summer camp where hundreds had food poisoning, that was not what was happening even though we found out at breakfast that Bryan had been up during the night also with little Aidan throwing up.

As it turned out, the early sick ones were through the worst within 24 hours as is typical of stomach flu victims, but they all needed an extra day before the color came back to their cheeks and they were no longer weak. They had unintentionally spread it to the Johnson family so then I knew it was not my turkey. The next night the teens, who had not gotten the flu yet and felt like running around again, went to a movie in town, and Gerry had to go get Geri Ann when she became sick there.

On and on it went. Let’s see—Aidan, Sam, Leslie, Geri Ann, Erin, Gerry, Cecelie, Jeannie, Brian, Mary Ellen, Brianna, me, and finally Elijah right before they left this morning. The Archibalds had such a bug a week or so ago and seemed to be immune except for Aidan, who had spent that week at Gerry and Vickie’s. I am hoping they did not get the flu on their long way home today as Rick did as the Eilers traveled back to Freeport. Katherine, David, Vickie and Trent seemed to have escaped so far. Gerald had gotten a head cold on Wednesday and it kept getting worse each day and he became weak but did not seem to catch the flu. We were truly dropping like flies and it has not been a pretty picture at Woodsong for the last two days. My washing machine is running now and probably will be for the next day or two with blankets and towels. Everyone has agreed it has been a Thanksgiving to remember.