Opinion: All hands on deck for turkey dinner

Local columnist

Many of the workers at today’s 63rd annual Turkey Dinner and Bazaar at First United Methodist Church in Portales will be sporting aprons and t-shirts with a turkey logo made from three hand-prints nestled together and the words, “Many hands make light work.”

As you tuck into lunch or dinner there today (or both — a surprising number of locals take advantage of best visiting of the year and dine twice), consider for a moment the number of hands who make this eastern New Mexico tradition happen each year.

The hands of dozens of volunteers have been busy in the fellowship hall at FUMC all week, deboning more than 50 turkeys, setting up and decorating tables, and rolling silverware into white napkins.

Think of all the hands that washed and chopped 450 apples and 30 bunches of celery; the hands that will open and stir 90 gallons of green beans today, the hands that baked and sliced 300 pumpkin pies, the hands that made enough biscuits and cornbread to convert to 32 roasters full of dressing (an amount one must really see to believe).

Extra-strong hands earn the task of mixing the fruit salad in 20-gallon tubs, and continually stirring those roasters of dressing with a tool that looks more like a canoe paddle than a kitchen implement.

Today there will be brave hands scorched many times making gallons of gravy over a fire-breathing industrial stove. Other hands will be selling tickets, and serving up bountiful plates of Thanksgiving goodness to customers in the never-ending line (which is, by the way, only one of the great places to visit during this event). There will be hands filling hundreds of takeout containers, and other hands driving delivered meals all over Portales.

There will be extra hands to carry trays for those who need a bit of assistance, hands balancing pitchers of iced tea and ice water for refills, and hands clearing tables and laying fresh place mats throughout the day.

Many hands have been busy for months sewing, knitting, crocheting, and painting the goodies for sale in the accompanying bazaar. Hands with greener thumbs than mine (not that it takes much) have nurtured plants that will be for sale, and hands more adept than mine with a candy thermometer (again, I set a very low bar) have been stirring up sweets to sell.

More than a few hands are folded in prayer every year for this event, accompanied by heartfelt appeals for fair weather, a good turnout, enough turkey, enough pies. When you feed more than 2,500 people, these are all realistic concerns.

And finally countless hands will exchange handshakes and hugs today. Here’s hoping that yours will be among them. Lunch in the FUMC fellowship hall (200 South Avenue C) is from 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.; supper is served from 5-7:30 p.m. (although procrastinators run the risk of limited choices). Adult tickets remain an unbelievable bargain at $8; children under 10 get in for only $4. Call 575-356-8597 if you need to know more.

Betty Williamson thinks FUMC deserves a gigantic hand for hosting this annual event. You may reach her at [email protected].