My family spent Thanksgiving Day 1982 in Artesia because Johad had football practice that day. This meant he wasn't able to join us for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. He got to eat when he got home about 3pm. (Really, we should have just waited for him, but we had a lot of family members there that year and had planned the dinner at a specific time before the coaches came up with the practice schedule.)
Aside from that, Thanksgiving wasn't very special, but I was glad I got to spend it with family. Much of our energy went into gearing up for the day after Thanksgiving, and we did NOT go shopping. Johad and the football team were going to be going against St. Michael's Academy in Santa Fe for the playoffs. The football team from my senior year didn't make the playoffs, despite having a "Gipper."
(This is something I left off that original post about the dead friend: When the ninth grade football team was told about his passing, they swore that three years later, they would win the State Football Championship in 1981 and dedicate it to him. The team didn't even make the playoffs and they had apparently forgotten about their promise. At this period in time, for some weird reason, the team only won the championship every other year. I guess they didn't take that into account when pledging to honor him with it.)
Johad traveled with the team. Loyd went up with the school marching band. My family drove up to Santa Fe and hung out at the parents of our neighbors before the game started. We drove over to the Academy and went to the football field. While it had an incredible view from the bleachers, the supporters of both teams had to sit on the same side of the field. It was awkward.
It started getting really cold and I started shivering. Mom asked me if I wanted to go ahead and leave with someone else who was going home about the same time. Yes, I did. I went back to that house, hung out and listened to the rest of the game on the radio. One of the things that struck me by the play-by-play announcers was that a loss by the St. Michael's team (which was happening) was going to be really hard on the seniors because they had worked hard the last three years to get to this level, and if the team next year improved on the season, they wouldn't be a part of it. It was their last shot at Championship glory. I kind of felt bad for them, like I felt bad for those seniors in my high school class who couldn't bring the trophy home.
Johad and Larry came back with Mom and Dad. We then went out to a relative's house in Espanola, NM, on the outskirts of Santa Fe. The relative had been at Dad's 40th birthday party and met Johad there. He remarked that Johad's English had improved in the last three months. We didn't even notice.
We ate dinner and watched the boxing match between "Tex" Cobb and Larry Holmes. I was never really into boxing, but that was the strangest sports viewing experience in my entire life.
We spent the night and went home the next day. We found out later that there was a major snowstorm between Santa Fe and Roswell that closed the road. Everybody else who had gone to that game, including the football players, the marching band, the coaches, teachers and their families had to spend the night in Vaughn. A makeshift shelter was set up in the school's gymnasium. The person who gave me a ride to Artesia from ENMU got caught up in that. He made it sound like everybody actually had a good time. I guess that was because the team won, so they had reason to celebrate.
On Sunday, I was driven to the house of the person who drove me down and we left for Portales, stopping in Lake Arthur to pick up the other two students along the way. Nothing eventful happened on the way back, which we were probably all glad about. We were eager to get back to our "normal" lives at school.
So that was the White Thanksgiving. One of these days, I'm going to have to tell you about the White Halloween.
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