Thanksgiving
"Hop Sing!" Ben Cartwright bellowed melodiously and flinching
only slightly as the glass case of the grandfather clock imploded into a
thousand pieces. He tapped the banjo barometer meditatively, but as usual it
registered "fair". The weather on the Ponderosa was always pleasant,
he thought and flashed a grateful smile to the boys in Production. Save for the
odd winter episode like The Last Hunt,
the sun always shone, it was usually warm enough for at least one member of the
family to waltz around in shirt sleeves.
Hop Sing shuffled through. Yet again, Wardrobe had supplied him with
slippers that were two sizes too big for him. He clutched a pile of cloths,
which he was halfway through hemming neatly. In a busy and accident-prone
household, there was always a great demand for Hop Sing's handy cloths, which
were utilised to staunch wounds, mop down feverish invalids or even act as a
sling.
"It'll be Thanksgiving soon," Ben announced. "Is the
turkey fattening up nicely?"
Hop Sing looked blank. Once again he had mysteriously disappeared for
several episodes and he was still wondering how the Cartwrights had managed to
fend for themselves in his absence. Not only did they have an enormous cattle
ranch to tend, there was the small matter of their horse breaking operations,
mining interests, and timber felling and preparation. Yet somehow,
miraculously, the Cartwrights managed to find the time to keep the house clean
and tidy and produce nutritious meals at the same time. Not to mention forming
posses, acting as deputy sheriffs and generally being the mainstays of law and
order.
"What turkey?" Hop Sing asked.
"The turkey we are going to have for Thanksgiving!" Ben
explained patiently. And to think they wondered why he had grey hair! An awful
thought struck him. "We do have a turkey, don't we?"
"No." Short, succinct and to the point. Hop Sing knew he was
never going to rise to the heady ranks of star or even guest star, so he had
dispensed with any unnecessary frills or furbelows.
Now that Ben thought about it, delicious haunches of meat just appeared
on the dinner table as if by magic. While he had seen the occasional chicken
around the place, there was no sign of the magical pigs that obligingly
supplied the household with a never-ending series of pork chops. And neither
Hoss nor Joe had been especially keen on eating the rabbits reared in Ponderosa Explosion.
"No turkey?" Ben's voice dropped to a mere whisper, thus
alerting viewers to the fact that this was indeed a calamity.
Hoss had overheard the conversation and barrelled forward "But we
have to have turkey! It's in the Constitution, isn't it: the right to bear arms
and eat vast amounts of turkey and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes
and…"
“We’re not talking about your constitution here,” Adam told him. “And
anyway, its tradition that insists we ought to have turkey on Thanksgiving.”
“And you know the reason why, don’t you?” Joe asked, in a
long-suffering tone. The Giggly Sisters waited with baited breath to see if Adam
really did know why they ate turkey.
“Yes, of course,” Adam snorted. He buried his head back in his book.
“I don’t care why we eats turkey,” Hoss cried, thus saving Adam from a
grilling by the sisters, who knew everything. “I jist want to know why we ain’t
got a turkey this year.”
“Nobody told me we were doing a Thanksgiving episode this year,” Hop
Sing defended himself. “How was I supposed to know?”
“By looking at the calendar?” suggested the blonde. Her calendar had
Thanksgiving marked on it, even though it was a UK one.
“What are we going to do?” Hoss lamented. “It ain’t Thanksgiving
without a turkey.”
This was indeed a calamity. Hop Sing gave them all a dark look and
retreated back into the safety of the kitchen. Although seen quite clearly in
exterior shots, for some reason the viewers were only allowed a rare glimpse
into this room. Signor Biancci had done an admirable job of whipping up
delicacies during Little Man Ten Feet Tall, Hoss had filched some
doughnuts during Feet of Clay and of course, Joe had suffered quite
wonderfully during A Matter of Circumstance, but these were clearly
standout episodes. Normally, the interior of the kitchen existed in a parallel
universe, accompanied by the bunkhouse.
Muttering to himself, Hop Sing stirred the ever-present pot of broth
that bubbled away on the stove. That was one of the unshakeable rules of the
Ponderosa: there must always be broth on the boil, just in case of an
unfortunate accident befalling one of the Cartwrights. As they regularly did.
“Where do they think all the meat comes from?” Hop Sing pondered. The
vision of life on a busy ranch that Mr Dortort (or The Creator, as the sisters
referred to him, in reverential terms and a slight but unmistakeable
genuflection) presented to viewers did tend to skimp rather on the unpleasant
practicalities of bringing wholesome and hearty meals to the table. Neutering
horses, slaughtering cows, making sausages from scratch – none of these
traditional, but slightly messy activities ever seemed to make it onto the
screen, strangely enough. Hop Sing was sure the viewers would have been
fascinated, but Mr Dortort explained that he had to consider those of a nervous
disposition.
Hop Sing sighed loudly and swung his cleaver high into the air,
preparatory to dissecting an entire pig. For all that the Ponderosa tended to
specialise in cows, roast beef and steak pie never seemed to feature very
heavily on the menu. Unlike pig in all its many forms: bacon, ham, sausages,
pork chops… the list was endless. “And exactly where does this pig live?” he
snorted. “Behind the bunkhouse?” He seemed to remember there being a few pigs
in Dark Star, but nobody referred to
that episode very often, preferring to think of it as just a bad dream.
“So what are we going to do about a turkey for Thanksgiving?” Joe
asked, looking at Ben.
“I don’t know,” Ben admitted, wishing that someone else could think up
ideas. He looked at Adam. “You’re the one with a college education. What should
we do?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Adam demanded. “I didn’t study turkey
raising at college!”
“What did you study at college?” asked the redhead, innocently.
“Architecture and engineering? Very useful on a ranch, I must admit.” Adam sent
her a ferocious look, which she blithely ignored. After 10 months, she was
quite used to his enmity.
“You could try and catch one,” suggested the blonde, although she
wasn’t completely sure that wild turkeys roamed the Ponderosa.
“Or you could buy one,” the redhead mentioned.
“From where?” asked Adam sarcastically.
“One of those neighbours who pops up on a regular basis,” she
countered, coolly. “Surely one of them might have a turkey for sale?”
“Well, we could try, I suppose,” Ben agreed slowly. “Or perhaps one of
Hop Sing’s cousins would know where we could get one from. They seem to have
all sorts of useful contacts.”
“Or perhaps you could just have a nice joint?” suggested the blonde.
“And where are we going to get that from?” Adam demanded, totally
ignoring the fact that several hundred tons of prime beef wandered around
Ponderosa every day.
“That bear looks like it’d be right tasty!” Hoss said cheerfully.
“Moist and succulent, I bet!”
Joe gathered poor, petrified Paw into his arms. “This bear is like a
son to me!” he declared. Ben sighed deeply: he’d always had a secret hankering
for a grandchild but could not quite reconcile one that was covered in fur and
had a short stumpy tail.
Hastily changing the subject, the blonde inadvertently stirred up a new
hornet’s nest. “What exactly are you thankful for?”
Joe grinned broadly. “I’m thankful that there aren’t too many wolves
around, so I don’t have to duck every time old Adam picks up a rifle.”
“It-was-an-accident!” Adam protested. “Will I never hear the end of
it?”
Joe shook his head. “Nope!”
“It’s somewhat of a running joke or even a leit-motif to the Giggly
Sisters’ stories,” the blonde explained sunnily. The look Adam gave her was anything but
sunny!
“We’re thankful for the first settlers surviving the winters here,” Ben
told the sisters, understating it somewhat. “We give thanks that we have enough
food gathered to see us through the coming winter.”
Hop Sing shuffled back out of the kitchen. He was thankful that he had
learned long ago what was needed to survive on the Ponderosa. “Problem solved,”
he announced and turned to go back to the kitchen. After all, those cloths
weren’t quite finished, and who knew when they would next be needed?
“Wait a minute!” Ben protested. “You can’t just say that and leave!
Tell us how you solved the problem.”
Flashing a toothy grin, Hop Sing said, “Number Four cousin came to
visit when number three cousin came for laundry.”
“And?” prompted Hoss.
Shrugging modestly, Hop Sing replied, “I always get my turkey from him
for Thanksgiving.”
Leaving the family sitting there open-mouthed, he went back to the
kitchen. Honestly! Did the Cartwrights think he left everything up to chance?
They might keep Virginia City and its environs running, but who did they think
kept the Ponderosa in order?
Back in the living room, each person pondered the things that made them
thankful: Paw was grateful to escape from the fate of being pot-roasted; Hoss
was appreciative that wardrobe had given him dispensation from tucking his
trousers into his boots; Adam gave thanks for his musical abilities and the
girls were truly delighted with Joe. And Ben?
Ben sat back and regarded his family with pride. He had a lot to be
thankful for. His life would be truly perfect if only these girls would finally
go!
Joe gave the sisters a sun-lit smile. “Thank you!” he said, with a
roguish twinkle.
Giggly Sisters Productions
November 2003