Now & Then: Never underestimate the value of sweet potato casserole

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I have a column to write.

I guess that’s something to be thankful for. At least I know what I’ll be writing about.

All my Thanksgivings Past kind of run together. But one stands out, for good reason — I had the mumps.

For all you Gen-Xers and Millennials and those in between, the mumps is an illness with one outstanding feature — swollen salivary glands. That causes your neck and jaws to swell, bullfrog-like.

For me, the mumps happened after we went to the state fair in the fall of 1954. The virus may have been on the loose in Raleigh because soon after we returned home one of my brothers came down with the mumps. Then another brother immediately joined him in the sick bay. The disease spread through the family in waves, affecting a couple of us at a time.

Even Daddy got the mumps. He told us it was his fourth time with the ailment, even though it’s supposed to be a one-time deal. I guess his mumps immunity gene wasn’t kicking in.

I must have been in the last wave since I was fully in the mumps dumps on Thanksgiving day. The thing about the mumps, in my experience, is that you don’t always feel like you’re sick.

So I was up and dressed for Thanksgiving, breathing in the smells of turkey, dressing, pumpkin pie and sweet potato casserole. I was truly ready to dig in.

Unfortunately, my swollen salivary glands told me otherwise. The process of chewing made them lash out with sharp pains in my neck and jaw area.

While everyone else was enjoying the traditional feast, I wound up “feasting” on Mama’s sweet potato casserole since it required very little in the way of jaw movement. Even so, the glands ached just from swallowing.

Ironically, the one Thanksgiving that should be forgettable for me is the one I remember the most. 

But hold your pity — I’ve more than made up for that sordid occasion every year since. My swollen girth is a testament to that.

Even the Thanksgiving of 1954 offered plenty to be grateful for. If my illness had been the flu or measles, I would have been bedridden the entire day, suffering from achy joints, fever and loss of appetite. Not even a spoonful of sweet potato casserole would have passed through my burning lips.

With the mumps, though, I could at least pretend I was enjoying the holiday banquet. I could be up moving around, even going outside.

During those years my father had a movie camera to record our youthful foolishness. One of those reels shows me in the front yard wearing a cowboy hat, flannel shirt and puffy cheeks. I’m sure it was from that fateful Thanksgiving.

Having my mumps recorded on 8-millimeter film for posterity isn’t exactly my idea of something to be thankful for. But Daddy must have been enjoying renewed energy after recovering from his own bout with the gland-swelling malaise. 

Plus, I think he enjoyed filming us kids in awkward situations. And he would relish the results even more when he proclaimed “Movie time!” as he set up the projector.

I guess in a way I can be thankful that he filmed me with swollen jaws on that fateful Thanksgiving. When I see myself in that painful position, I can be grateful that it was a one-time ailment.

This year I can eat turkey and dressing, slurp cranberry sauce, devour pumpkin pie and, yes, swallow sweet potato casserole with nary a twinge of pain in my neck or jaws.

If that’s not something to be thankful for, I don’t know what is.

And then there’s the other tradition besides the food: Thanksgiving Day football.

Happy Thanksgiving.

■ Larry Penkava is a writer for Randolph Hub. Contact: 336-302-2189, larrypenkava@gmail.com.