Over the last week or so, we've been exchanging e-mails with another member of the Packers family, Sally Ann Shurmur. She's the daughter of "Fritz the Dad." You may remember him as Fritz Shurmur, the defensive coordinator on the Packers' Super Bowl teams of the '90s.
Sally Ann is the community news editor for the Casper Star-Tribune, the paper in Casper, Wyo. She recently shared some fond Thanksgiving memories with her readers:
I was still enjoying Thanksgivings at Nana's when I first experienced her cranberry "cocktails."
Then we'd all head to Nana's after the game and sit at the huge table first Bapa and then Uncle John created by placing long sheets of plywood over the dining room table. Covered with Nana's best tablecloths, no one could ever tell.
Every Thanksgiving now, I buy the ingredients. Usually, I'm the only one who partakes -- after the turkey is in, before the crisis begins.
Mix equal parts cranberry juice cocktail and lemon-lime pop and serve in beautiful, clear glasses. Bless Nana. She thought that her creation was very sophisticated. Actually, it's delicious, even though I now substitute diet or sugar-free for both ingredients. Perhaps that's why I'm the only one who partakes.
I think of these as Nana cocktails and always will. There were Thanksgivings at Nana's when we were little and Thanksgivings at Nana's when Fritz the Dad was with the Lions (in the late '70s). Nana did all of the cooking so Peggy Jane the Mom could go to the game and not worry about dinner.
By the time Sally Ann's dad got the job with the Packers in the '90s, she was all grown up, so she and her family drove from Casper to Green Bay for Thanksgiving. Cranberries again were at the heart of the trip.
Just outside Tomah, we saw the first signs from cranberry producers who grow for Ocean Spray. "Let's go pick some cranberries," I exclaimed. Funny how that car just kept moving.
I marveled at the quaint little towns with the 21 as their main street. We (I) shopped at the Farmer's Wife craft store in Omro and counted the signs advertising cheese curds in the convenience store windows. If it was early in the morning, we'd often see a fresh (deer) kill -- still dripping blood -- draped over a spare tire on the back of an SUV or a head sticking out of the bed of a pickup.
Brats, cheese, cranberries -- and the Packers. Now there's a winning combination.
I've changed juice brands now and look on the label to buy made in Wisconsin. Silly, but that's a connection I want to hold onto.
Sally Ann has a couple more Wisconsin connections she cherishes. "Peggy Jane the Mom" still lives in Suamico. Sally Ann's sister and her family live in Howard.
Needless to say, she's looking forward to another Thanksgiving with the Packers. Here are her plans for Thursday, a holiday spent at home in Casper.
We'll eat at 4 p.m. Mountain time, because I can't see the big screen from the kitchen, so I'm waiting until after the Packers beat the Lions to do that last-minute dinner stuff.
I have no idea why I don't just serve brats with sauerkraut and onions and beer DURING the game, but it will be the traditional meal we'll enjoy while we savor the Packers' win and remember with fondness our trips to Suamico for Thanksgiving with Peggy Jane the Mom and Fritz the Dad.
-- Jeff Ash, jash@greenbaypressgazette.com
