I Hate Thanksgiving

Now that I have your attention, what I dislike is traveling on Thanksgiving. This is a factor of being in college sports, particularly basketball. If your team is any good, you get none of the holidays -- at an early season tournament for Thanksgiving, to or from some holiday tournament at Christmas, same for New Year's Eve and in many years postseason tournament for Easter.

I saw the harbinger of the holidays a few days ago -- the green and red Starbucks coffee cups. Shudder. Visions of really bad chain restaurant Thanksgiving dinners. Wandering aimlessly through empty airports or closed down city centers.

Last year was the exception to a 23-year run as the family got the chance to travel with me to Hawai'i, and we all had home cooked Thanksgiving dinner with my kami'ani aunt in Honolulu. Years ago, we at least got to stay home for Thanksgiving as Arkansas hosted a tournament, but some of the other staff got tired of having to work the Friday after, so they endorsed killing the tournament and sending the rest of us off on the voyage of the damned (I hope their turkey's got dried out in the oven today).

It has led to some interesting Thanksgiving meals, like the one in 2000 madly grabbing at a package to turkey meat and a bag of fritoes at a grocery store in New Jersey -- literally the only thing open on Thanksgiving night.

I love to travel with the best of them, but looking back, I've missed way to many family events for this job. Here's fair warning to those wanting to get into the business. When I started out, we always wondered why the boss sent the graduate assistant to Hawaii, or Puerto Rico, or Alaska. He never seemed to take the cool preseason trips.

Now on the other end of the gig, I can see why. Once you've seen San Antonio, there's no need to see it again on Thanksgiving night. Family is more important. I did make that choice one year, however, as my mother was dying of cancer I sent my student worker to the Virgin Islands. To this day, people still don't get why I'd skip that trip. As it turned out, it was also the last Thanksgiving our extended family had together as a series of holiday deaths would follow -- punctuated last year with my mother-in-law passing on Christmas morning just minutes after opening the presents under the tree.

We hoped the long shadow of illness and funerals had passed -- literally -- with last season. We were fresh out of older relations -- mothers, fathers, aunts, birth parents -- then we get the slap in the face of maybe having my job potentially dead. Another reminder that just when you think it's safe to go back to the gym . . . .

Oh well, at least the Blue Bell is fresh down here.