"Sometimes it’s simply about saying “thank you;” nothing more, nothing less.

The prayers went on forever. Actually, they lasted – usually – about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. It really did seem like they would never end, though.

And the worst part was that he knew what he was doing to us! He knew that it was torture – the smells, the sights, the waiting. He and grandma put all of the boiling meats and the red hot dogs and the sweets all on the little table with the yellow, vinyl table cloth on it – right there for all of us to see. We all knew that the potato salad was going to be good and mustardy, and we knew that we were gonna get some pop that was not warm Cragmont Cream Soda. And it was simply mean, what he was doing, gosh darn it – the smells were incredible!

See, we are a “meat” people – a meal without flesh was like a cheeseburger without the cheese. And cooking meat – especially meat that’s been slowly roasting in the oven – has a very distinctive smell that tends to linger. Therefore, we had to pretend that we couldn’t smell the turkey roasting and the sweetbreads frying. We had to pretend that our stomachs weren’t collectively rumbling. We had to pretend that the smell of the hot mincemeat pie and the sight of the jellied cranberry sauce on the uneven kitchen table didn’t make our mouths water.

I’m not a good actor. So my stomach growled loudly and slobbered like the dog on “Turner and Hooch.”

But I digress – the point is that this was vicious. He must have enjoyed torturing us. Us kids knew what was about to happen – ugh – we smiled a fake smile and gave a faint, barely detectable groan."

Get the Story:
Gyasi Ross: Being thankful on Thanksgiving (Indian Country Today 11/23)