the thanksgiving that almost wasn't ... and bees, bees, bees!!

It's officially the week of Thanksgiving and, as promised, I will now present to you, my loyal blog readers (up to 6 or 7 by now for sure!) two tales from Thanksgivings past.

The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't

The newspaper is very cool when it comes to holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. For employees who have to work the actual holiday, there is a tradition that they are fed holiday feasts. The food is catered, but still usually pretty good; it's a token measure for those who have to work, but a nice token.

One year though, it almost didn't happen. We'd just got a new managing editor from the states, and she just didn't seem to get the Thanksgiving dinner thing. It was almost as if she was some kind of Thanksgiving Grinch.

I had my usual wonderful family Thanksgiving dinner at home — oven-roasted turkey, ham, mashed taters, giblet gravy, stuffing and dressing, mom's homemade cranberry relish, homemade bread, pumpkin pie and peach cobbler (the other kind of pie varied — there was always pumpkin, but mom usually made apple pie, peach cobbler or something else).

I had to work, so I drove into the office. What awaited me there was a sad sight. There was going to be no holiday feast that day. Apparently, the new boss thought that "feeding the workers" just meant that there had to be some food. Her choice of food: Sandwich fixings — bread, cold cuts and cheeses. For THANKSGIVING.

DZER to the rescue!! I called mom and let her know I was coming home for the leftovers. I drove back home, she helped me pack up everything — about half of the feast was left over — and I trucked it back into the office.

Thankfully, there's always only a small number of people working Thanksgiving — like 8-10 people. They couldn't have a lot of food and there wasn't enough for seconds, but everyone got a pretty satisfying meal, plus pie to boot.

It meant no leftovers at my house, which sucked cuz I love eating Thanksgiving food for days after, but I thought it was the right thing to do. And my coworkers sure were happy I made the sacrifice. The new boss was a little piqued at first, until someone graciously explained to her that sandwich fixings on Thanksgiving didn't cut it. She made sure that Christmas dinner was up to the newsroom's usual standards.

Thanksgiving, Typhoon and Bees

Typhoons around Thanksgiving aren't unusual for Guam. It's right during the high point of typhoon season for us.

One year, we had a big storm hit a day or so before the holiday. Power was knocked out islandwide for days and days. Luckily, my parents always insisted on a gas stove/oven, just in case of a typhoon or power outage. While some families were pretty screwed and had to eat KFC or had to try to find a hotel that was serving Thanksgiving meals, my parents were merrily cooking away our usual superb feast.

We even had a few family friends over. It was a great meal, as usual, eaten outside on paper plates.

After we all were done, my brother-in-law decided he was going to check his bee hives at my dad's ranch. He produces "Boonie Bee Honey" here on Guam and has hives all over the island, including, at that time, about a dozen or so at my dad's ranch. Bees made sense there because of all the flowering plants. They produced a fine grade of light honey.

My youngest brother and my sister's oldest boy decided to go with him to check on the bees. The brother-in-law just wanted to make sure the hives weren't destroyed and that the bees were OK.

We're all still sitting around, picking at food, eating a second or third slice of pumpkin pie with Cool Whip, just chatting and talking and enjoying each other's post-Typhoon company. The afternoon drifts on by ... and the three haven't returned yet. The ranch wasn't that far away, so we're kind of wondering what happened. That's when the phone rings.

They're all at the emergency room. Apparently, a few of the bigger hives got knocked over while they were checking them out and there was an all-out swarm! LOL .. It wasn't funny for them — they each got stung dozens of times. I think my brother-in-law was stung like 20 or 30 times on the head. They all finally got back for their belated dessert a couple hours later — with swollen and hurting heads.

The moral to the story: Stay and eat pie whenever someone says, "I'm going to go check on the bees." LOL

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• Honey bees are another species introduced to Guam from elsewhere. They are not native to the island.