Thanksgiving! Ah, what a great day!

Oh yeah, what about your obnoxious Uncle Charlie? Well, take into consideration that Uncle Charlie thinks that you are equally obnoxious. Let’s call a truce and concentrate on all we agree on. That could be a short conversation! Perhaps, but we’ll give it a try.

Better yet, we can explore the stories of the family. The old guys at the table will love that. First of all, they are the guys with most of the stories. Plus, they have had the time to incubate and create better stories than the ones that happened. As I am now one of the “old guys,” I like that alternative.

I came from a family of six children and my father liked to tell stories. We kids began to notice that as, the stories were re-told, they got better with age, kind of like the gallon jug of wine that Dad kept under his chair that he frequently received from his friend, Pop Delue.

My father was a hero to us, but we would sometimes wink at each other as if to say, “That’s a new wrinkle.”

Pop Downey, who lived next door, would come by and tell some big tales himself. To have these two guys in the same room was a little like having a front-row seat at a liars contest. There was some element of fact in all the stories, but the enhancements made the stories new and fun. We knew there were exaggerations, but so what? It was fun and that should be a part of the Thanksgiving celebration.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.