We’ll start with the official family portrait, taken with the big Canon on Thanksgiving day:
This is as much of our family as we can gather together these days: our granddaughter Taylor had to stay behind in Las Vegas to work, but at least she was able to share Thanksgiving dinner with her boyfriend’s family.
Our grandson Quentin, who just turned 15, is now taller than his dad; I’m shocked to find myself the shortest of the Woodford men. I was 6’4″ when I was younger, taller than my son by an inch, but with age my spine and knee joints have compressed and now I’m slightly less than 6’2″, maybe even 6’1″ (maybe I can talk the lady who owns the corner Anytime Fitness franchise into adding a rack). Here are Greg and Quentin out-talling each other in the kitchen:
What, no food photos? I fell down on the job this year. You’ll have to take it on trust that everything was wonderful, from the turkey to the sides to the smoked tri-tip and brats, right down to Costco’s finest pumpkin pie, lovely to look at and smell and eat, as always too soon over. I did take a short video of the Fortress of Smoke© in action, infusing the tri-tip with hickory goodness:
In the mid-1980s Greg and I would ride our motorcycles over the causeway from Tampa to the original Hooters in Clearwater, Florida. When Quentin was little, we started visiting Hooters in Las Vegas and Tucson, and over time it became a tradition. We started taking photos in 2008. I keep them all in a Flickr album titled The Boyz @ Hooters, and it’s fascinating to see Quentin grow from year to year.
Here’s our first visit, to the old Tucson Hooters on Wilmot in November 2008:
And here we are at the new Tucson Hooters on Broadway on Friday:
Yes, I know this makes us look like throwbacks, but it’s tradition.
Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends, wherever you live, and may you too have much to be thankful for!