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  This is a Thanksgiving story . . . kind of.

When I was a kid, my family spent Thanksgiving Day at the house of one of my dad’s aunts, Diana Adams (“Aunt Di”), with my dad’s mother and his brothers, sisters, and their families—plus Aunt Di, of course. Aunt Di lived on a farm in  Clay County, Illinois, about halfway between my home town of Louisville and another small town, Kinmundy. We enjoyed these family get-togethers for several years; I think I must’ve been 10 or 11 when things changed, and we began celebrating the holiday in our own home.

The routine at Aunt Di’s was always the same. First, the families arrived—most coming from Louisville or from nearby locations (including Xenia and Centralia), but some traveling to Aunt Di’s from much more distant places (Decatur and Chicago). My dad’s brothers Bob and Morris (pronounced “Morse”) and sometimes Uncle Bob’s friend Lowell came from Louisville. Dad’s brother Bill, his wife Norma, and their children Billy and Candace drove from Xenia, and dad’s brother Scott, his wife Lyndall, and their daughter Vicky (now “Viki”) made the trek from Centralia. Dad’s sister Helen Oliver Kincaid, her husband Leroy (“LEEroy”), and their children (Diane, Louise, Ronnie, and maybe one more) came from near Louisville, and Dad’s sister Marjorie (“Marge”) Oliver McAllister, her husband Bud (his “real” name was Don, but we never used it), and their children (Gene, Mike, Tommy, Tony, Debbie, and maybe another) made the drive from near Flora. Dad’s brother Raymond, his wife Stella, and their children Raymie, Gaye, Pam, and Janet traveled from Decatur, and Dad’s brother brother Elmer, his wife Juanita, and their son John Edgar made the trip from Chicago.

The aunts began talking and unpacking food as soon as each arrived, the uncles “loafed” until all of them were there and then went “hunting” for rabbits or squirrels (though they seldom brought any trophies back with them: hmmm), and the kids got in everybody’s way until they were sent outside to play. Meanwhile, the aunts continued talking and doing whatever they needed to do with the food. 

When the uncles returned (always boisterous, full of bonhomie, and some, I would now guess, rather, shall we say, high-spirited) and cleaned up, we all squeezed into Aunt Di’s dining room (with its monster philodendron that extended from one corner of the room to two others) and made ready to eat—after someone was asked to “say the blessing.” The blessing was always, mercifully, brief.

Then the main event began, and that’s what I remember best: food, lots of food.

We always had turkey, of course: huge pans of drumsticks and wings and sliced meat, both light and dark. We also had several platters of sliced ham, Mamaw Oliver’s famous candied yams (fried, of course), several kinds of dressing (never stuffing), Southern-style green beans, corn, cranberry sauce (both jellied and in various salads), several big bowls of freshly mashed potatoes, various condiments, pumpkin pies, and one other dessert (about which, more later).

I remember that I was always bedazzled by the many kinds of pumpkin pie. The variety seemed (then, at least) endless, and it kept changing from year to year. Why was that? – Because the aunts (all but one, that is) had an annual competition (which no one ever discussed but which everyone knew about) to see whose pie was the tastiest and most unusual. There were pumpkin chiffon pies, lattice-top pumpkin pies, dark-colored pumpkin pies, light-colored pumpkin pies, pumpkin pies with soft, creamy filling, pumpkin pies with dense, pudding-like filling, spicy pies, bland pies, thick-crusted pies, thin-crusted ones, pies with soggy bottoms, pies with flaky bottoms, and on and on and on and on. And of course when it was time for dessert, each aunt tried to outshout the others with some variation of “Be sure you try my pie.” 

There was, however, one non-participant in the Great Oliver Pumpkin Pie Throwdown: Aunt Norma. She never brought pumpkin pie; instead, she always brought a cake—and I remember those cakes better than anything else.

Aunt Norma’s cakes were never the same except in one respect: they could only be described as outrageous—not because they tasted bad or were decadently rich (they were neither), but because of the color palette(s) Aunt Norma used when she made them: they always featured one startling color for the frosting and at least one completely different, but equally vibrant, color for the cake itself. I say “at least one” because sometimes the cakes had more than one layer, each with a different color, and because sometimes the colors were even incorporated into a checkboard effect (How did she do that?). They might, for example, have magenta frosting over neon green and orange cake, dayglow orange frosting over violet and/or pink cake, multicolored frosting swirls over cake with different (though just as exuberantly contrasting) swirls, and so on. I should also add that we never knew what psychedelic wonders awaited us until the first piece of cake was cut—always to oohs and aahs and good-natured laughter and exclamations like “Well, Norm’s done it again!” and “Aunt Norma’s cake this year is even weirder than last year’s!” and “Norma, if you ever bring a ‘normal’ cake or even a pumpkin pie, we’ll all die of apoplectic shock!”

All of us—adults and kids alike—always looked forward to Aunt Norma’s outrageous cakes for, I think, several reasons. One was to see if she’d bring the same creation two years in a row. She didn’t. Another was to see if she’d ever turn things inside out by bringing an outrageous pumpkin pie instead of a cake. She didn’t do that, either. Yet another was to see if she’d expand her bag of tricks and do something equally startling but from an entirely different context—like dressing up like a Maharani and riding in from Xenia on the back of an elephant. She also didn’t do anything like that. What she did—again and again and again—was to bring her shockingly distinctive cakes.

I admire Aunt Norma for her inventiveness, her discreetly picaresque sense of humor, the way she kept us guessing from year to year, and the high drama she created for us all as we waited for someone to cut into the cake and reveal what was inside. This bundle of memories is crystal clear and comes flooding back every time I remember the Thanksgiving trips to Aunt Di’s house.

Thanks, Aunt Norma! I wish I could see you to give you a big hug, share a laugh, and say “I’m thankful for you!”

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