Thanksgiving away from home

Thanksgiving is the one holiday everyone wants to spend at home, and that is perfectly understandable because the turkey never tastes as good anywhere else.  Unfortunately, that isn’t always possible.  Military personnel, for instance, have to stay away and for a good reason for the most part, so it’s important that we remember those who put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of the nation when we celebrate this day devoted to counting our many blessings.

Sometimes you are able to do pretty well for yourself, though, while you have your Thanksgiving dinner in exile.  Way back in 1981, a whole three decades ago, while I was serving in the U. S. Army, some buddies of mine and I managed to literally hit the jackpot and were able to feast at a Holiday Inn located on Emerald Beach in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Our group was, at that time, en route to a new permanent duty station, a transition that was interrupted by some four months of additional training, some three months of which would be spent in a now closed Air Force base in San Angelo, Texas. 

Up until it was our turn to move on to greener pastures, the service members were always considered permanent party at the training stops, which meant you got to eat free.  You could show your military ID at the chow hall, or sign in, or something.  But someone in the Army decided it’d be better if their people were classified temporary duty, which meant that you paid for your meals in cash, and at the end of each month, the Army would cut you a check to reimburse you.

That would have worked out just fine if that someone had told the Air Force of this change of status, but whoever came up with that plan must have been too busy patting their own back to take care of this little detail.  So, when the end of the month came, just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, members of our group were all surprised by a fairly substantial check from the Army.  We were told when we got it we had to use it to pay the Air Force for the grub we’d done et.

When the Air Force was told we were ready to pay, that whole gaffe of not telling them we were no longer classified as permanent party came out and the Air Force had to admit they had no idea who’d eaten what or when, so we got our first month’s rations free. 

Now there’s a situation you didn’t mind finding yourself in; lots of cash and not much to spend it on, except a good time.  So a small group of us decided to go to Corpus Christi and have our turkey on the beach.  Now none of us had cars so we did the next best thing, we took a Greyhound, and on Wednesday we all had a good time looking at the Texas countryside from the air conditioned comfort of our coach.

We checked in at the Holiday Inn, and on Turkey Day, we all had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, then, that night, we went to a Chinese place and had Peking duck for dessert. 

All in all, one of the more memorable late November feasts ever.