Don’t let her rub you the wrong way.

It was about two days away from Thanksgiving. I’m guessing it was 1958 and I was in the eighth grade. Maybe I was fourteen or fifteen. Don’t really remember.
But anyway, My lot in life at that time was to walk to school and walk home. I walked every day. Ever since first grade. To and fro. Back and forth. Hither and yon. Everyday.
Every day back then to junior high and back as well. My dad left too early in the morning to take me to school. He worked two jobs and left early for the first job and came home at noon and left again to his second job at about two-o-clock. Too early to pick me up. So, I walked. Everyday. To school. Now, did I mention I walk. Everyday. To school no less.
Well, this one day in November. About two or maybe it was one day before Thanksgiving I arrived home, came in the side door off the driveway, stepped in and noticed my mom up to her elbows in glistening streaks of real grade A butter. Rubbing the bird. Applying butter in and out of every crease, hollow, and crevice of the turkey. This was pre-butterball days and this was what my mom did. She was stooped over as if a Swedish masseuse intent on doing a full-body massage. Butter from fingertips and as mentioned all the way up to the elbows. Dark brown Curley tresses dangled down over her sweaty brow as she vigorously rubbed. Caution: “Woman at Work.”
Then she had to get up in the pre-dawn morning to place the bird in the oven in preparation for our noon day Thanksgiving. All of this is not to mention her preparing and cooking about a dozen side dishes, dinner rolls, and desserts. Oh mom. I never thanked you for all this. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.