Thanksgiving Joy, Gridiron Drama, and Neighborly Love

How was your week?

We got back from vacation late morning on the 19^th after an overnight flight from Honolulu to Houston. We thought we were being sneaky by forgoing the exorbitantly expensive first-class seats for an exit row on the 777. Turns out the tray table takes up the extra seat width in that part of the cabin. Since there’s no seat in front of you, the table has to fold up and tuck into the armrest. Other than that, I can’t complain about the travel aspect much at all.

We had a full house Thursday for Thanksgiving. 7 of the eight kids—Oldest Son couldn’t make it down from Pittsburgh—plus Oldest Daughter’s significant other and his two kids, plus Grandson. We also had Number Two Son’s wife, her two kids, plus her niece, along with Family Friend, who has worked with three of the eight kids at a local restaurant over the years. Youngest Daughter had one of her friends along, too. 19 in all. We’d invited a few others who couldn’t make it for one reason or another.

Number Two Son smoked a nice ham, and I smoked a 19-pound bird. Both got rave reviews from everyone, even the younger kids. I was surprised at how little meat was left over, even with the number of people we had.

Right around when I was going to get the smoker going, we heard a couple of sirens come down our road. We’re in rural Oklahoma, so sirens aren’t that common. Turns out a neighbor three houses down suffered a fire in their home, displacing them for a while.

Four different departments responded, which sounds like a lot until you understand how rural we are. While we’ve all got city water, there are no hydrants in the area, so fire departments have to rely on tanker shuttles. So the local department brought their tanker and one of the other departments sent one of its tankers, though in the end, they didn’t set up any relay. That’s a good thing. It means they were able to knock the fire down quickly.

Still, it was a fire on Thanksgiving Day, and they’re out of their home for a while. The Red Cross is helping them, and I think we’re going to pick up a gift card to do a little something as well.

It’s sad though. We’ve lived here for seven-ish years, and I still don’t know their name.

And here’s a series of links about how other people mark the holiday, courtesy of The Marshall Project.

Football

Third Son was in town for Thanksgiving, so he, Middle Son, and I headed over to Number Two Son’s house to watch Michigan play Ohio State.

The Food

I smoked some queso for snacks and Middle Son ordered a catering tray from Chick-Fil-A. The queso was a pretty big hit. The recipe is fairly simple, one that’s been floating around /r/smoking for a while in several variations.

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 pound mild Italian sausage because I couldn’t find any chorizo
• 2 pounds Velveeta
• 7 ounces smoked gouda (one package from Aldi)
• 7 ounces smoked gruyere (ditto)
• 2 cans Ro-tel (drained-ish)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• Spiced to flavor. I used a few generous shakes of onion flakes, paprika, and cumin.

I used one can of Ro-tel and one can of Great Value tomatoes and green peppers. The latter needed to be drained.

I smoked at about 250 to 260° for about 90 minutes, stirring it after half an hour, and then again about 45 minutes later. After the first stir, I got nervous, thinking I needed to add more cheese. But I think it turned out just fine.

The Game

This was, no matter how it turned out, likely the end of an era for The Game. It’s almost always determined the Big Ten Champion. Even in the Division era, it’s set up one of the two teams playing for the Big Ten Championship. Now that the conference is doing away with divisions (none too soon, IMO), and college football is creating a 12-team playoff, The Game won’t be quite as important as it used to be. It’ll still be a great rivalry game, but it won’t carry the same post-season weight it used to. It’s highly likely, even with four new teams entering the B1G next season, that Michigan and Ohio State will play their usual rivalry game at the end of November, then play again the next week for the Big Ten Championship in Indianapolis. The winner will get an automatic entry to the playoffs.

The B1G (heh) question in my mind is what will happen if the team that wins the rivalry loses the championship game, especially if they’re a one-loss team at that point. Could we see three meetings between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes in one season?

At any rate.

Man, what a game. I held my breath more than a couple of times. It was the defensive slugfest I expected it to be, really. I was not expecting us to be 100% on 4^th-down conversions though.

It really felt like a classic edition of The Game, hearkening back to the Ten-Year War and the Schembechler vs Bruce years following.

The Donovan Edwards halfback pass play was a thing of beauty.

Tommy Doman’s punts were simply outstanding. I think he’s a terrific replacement for Brad Robbins. Might have to work on the mustache though.

When Michigan took back over in the 4^th quarter, I didn’t think they could run eight minutes off the clock, but there we were, kicking off to the Buckeyes with a minute left. A touchdown would tie the game, and the PAT would win it for them. Yeah, I was nervous. I knew they could pull it off if everything clicked for them.

And it didn’t click.

I was a lot happier than my boys at that moment. Number Two Son collapsed on the floor. Middle Son told me I wasn’t allowed to ride home with him, that I’d have to ride with Third Son.

Do I think Ryan Day is getting fired? No. I think Ohio State would be stupid to do that at this point. I thought the same thing about UM firing Harbaugh under similar statistics. But I’d guess Day isn’t going to get any “favorable personnel actions” any time soon, either.

As for the Wolverines, it’s on to Indianapolis and the Iowa Hawkeyes next week.

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