Since the dawn of man (or at least since they all moved down here from Indiana and Illinois), my family have been faithful participants in the St. Petersburg Times' Turkey Trot. The Turkey Trot is a somewhat counter-intuitive Thanksgiving ritual: On the one day out of the year when all of our physical, mental and spiritual energy is supposed to be focused on eating, thousands of folks here in Tampa Bay flood the streets of Clearwater at 6:30am to run a 10K… or maybe jog a 5K…or, in the case of my family, lazily stroll a 1 mile route called "The Gobbler."
In 30 years, three generations (it was four until my great grandpa passed away in '95 and it just might be four again this year because my brother and his wife had their first child) of Bracewells, Normans, Spears and Hunts have not missed a single Trot. We've Trotted with colds, flues, broken legs and cancer. My aunt Trots in her electric scooter and if she hits an impassable dirt patch in the road, my cousins and I lift her out. My best friend Billy Trotted on crutches his senior year of high school to impress my sister (his ex-girlfriend) who he hoped would take him back after such a display of strength and dedication. (It didn't work.)
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2008.