After reading your note, my first reaction was mmmmmm . . . stuffing. My second, though, was to recall a story that has been handed down through our S-I Harbison ancestors. Your last paragraph reminded me of it. Apocryphal or not, here it is: Thomas Harbison (son of Massey and John, and my g-g-g-grandfather) was one of the first constables in Buffalo Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, in the very early 1800s. Prior to 1895, there were no real game laws in PA, but the one regulation on hunting was that you weren't allowed to do it on Sunday (a reflection of our Quaker foundations, PA is still one of just 14 states in the US that don't allow Sunday hunting today). One fine Sunday morning a local ne'er-do-well named Jack was violating that lone game law by hunting deer. He shot one and, not wanting anyone to suspect his misdeed, quickly reloaded his rifle. Then he dragged the dead deer to a nearby haystack and hid it underneath so that he could come back and collect it later under the cover of darkness. Unfortunately for Jack, Constable Harbison walked along at that moment and saw him finishing the deed of burying the evidence under the haystack. "I'll take that gun," said Tom, "And that's a five dollar fine for hunting on Sunday." Knowing he was caught, Jack handed over the rifle and the cash. Then he asked, "Well, since you've already got my gun and my money, can you at least help me drag this deer home?" Tom consented and the two started toward Jack's cabin. They were talking about hunting tales of times past when suddenly a flock of turkeys appeared from the forest. In an instant, Tom whipped the gun to his shoulder and dropped one of them where it stood. Jack turned to Tom and said, "That's one of the finest shots I've ever seen! I think you hit him right in the head." Then with a grin on his face he added, "I think I'll take my gun back now . . . and my five dollars." Red-faced, Great-great-great Granddad complied. But presumably there was turkey on the menu at the Harbison cabin that night. Happy Thanksgiving, Rob -----Original Message----- From: Linda Merle [mailto:merle@mail.fea.net] Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:40 AM To: Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com Subject: RE: [Sc-Ir] SCOTCH-IRISH Thanksgiving It's me again!! I have no Scotch Irish Christmas suggestions. Alas, my maternial granddad (the Scotch Irish one) was lapsed RP and he HAD no traditions, apparently. My grandma took over, as in most homes. She was half Irish/Ulster Scot and half German. She had an intense Irish identity, Presbyterian to the DNA, Free Stater politically, but what do you call a Protestant Free stater with ancestors from Tyrone and Down? I think Unionist! She didn't know...... Alas, grandma's dad died young and the kids were put out with relatives so her mom could work. We sank to the servant class and grandma was raised by her Luthern grandparents. So my mother reports her Scotch Irish Christmases were German. This illustrates that Scotch Irish is an American ethnic group.... However my dad is half Scots and half English, a second generation American. I found out what we ate for Christmas was exactly what my Ulster friends were eating: Turkey, succatash, potatoes, gravy, stuffing and figgy pudding! Often my grannie made Chocolate pudding too with raisins, cooked the right way -- for hours boiled in a flour sack in water. But our hard sauce wasn't as grandma descended from Scots Presbyterian dissenters who had found a nice home in a typical Western PA church founded by Irish dissenters 200 years before. My Scotch Irish granddad DID bring the family a Scotch Irish Thanksgiving every year. He went out on the back porch and shot something. That's what you ate. My mother said people dreaded Thanksgiving. One year they had possum. Raccoon, goat, etc. You name it, they had to eat it. It was the Depression. Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net