"There's a black quarterback starting on Alabama. ... The South sure has changed."
It was the mid 1980s, and my uncle Lee — who proclaimed the words above in a voice so loud it could be heard around the whole house — was marvelling at that new reality. He died a few years later, and I can only wonder what he would have thought of our country with a black president and a black male attorney general who was recently replaced by a black woman.
With so much emphasis on family history in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, into which I was baptized in 1998, I can reflect spiritually on one of my family's greatest Thanksgiving traditions: TV and talk in the living room with football and other shows. The ritual was complete with stories — many stories.
I can never forget sitting in my grandmother's living room in East Orange, New Jersey. There were so many tales, spun with fervor, authority and the kind of wit and humor that made so many African-American comedians famous.
Often, there was a certain coarseness of speech to the stories. Yet, underneath, we could feel the love intended. It was, and still is, a rite of passage — an emotional fountain of language embedded in the deep and beautifully complex African-American oral tradition.
Part of the experience was that if one was a child (and I was in high school at the time), that child listened. There was a "seen and not heard" expectation of us when the adults were speaking. The words rolled off their tongues with an authority akin to Baptist preachers. There was a joy and certainty to their tone that made us want to hear more.
I heard, and still hear, about the South, from where both sides of my family migrated north after slavery. There was always much talk about the "old days." Family members of mine couldn't walk down streets that I could or ride buses or sit at lunch counters, or do a whole lot more.
Some of the stories contain obvious embellishments, but there is a certain musical quality that makes them ring with a triumphant sense of pleasure.
The Thanksgiving family stories that I heard throughout my youth, and still enjoy today, have become an oral journal designed to give me glimpses, flashes and precious detailed scenes of where my family has been.
The powerful connection also helps me see where I am going. It provides motivation to succeed.
Thanksgiving on the couch, filled with turkey, has allowed me to hear relatives recount victories over struggle, recovery after failure and progress in the face of hopelessness. I get to rejoice with them and share the love and victories they have achieved.
As the father of three children, I rejoice in the knowledge that they too will benefit from such wonderful family tradition.
Michael Strickland's website is at michaelrstrickland.com.