My First Thanksgiving Away From Home

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers My First Thanksgiving Away from Home It was Thanksgiving Day, 1965, 46 years ago. It seems so very long ago now. I was a Virginia Tech freshman in the Corps of Cadets. It was my first Thanksgiving 900 miles away from home, family and my high school girl friend. Early that morning I boarded a bus with the Corps and we traveled to the train station in Roanoke. A few hours later, we marched from there on Jefferson Street to Victory Stadium for the annual Thanksgiving game against VMI. I was unable to find a photograph or video, but I found a video from an earlier time. After the game I went to the Roanoke Airport (Woodrum Field) and boarded a prop plane on  Piedmont Airlines. I remember we landed twice in West Virginia and then finally landed in Cincinnati. I switched airlines to a Delta Airlines and ultimately landed in Chicago close to midnight. My first Thanksgiving away from home was a long, long day. My visit with my family and girl friend was far too short for a guy who was homesick. On Sunday morning my dad told me it was time to go back to the airport. I told him I wasn’t going back to Virginia Tech. Instead, I planned to transfer to Elmhurst College, where I could play football. I never saw my father so upset with me. He grabbed me with two hands and told me in no uncertain terms that I was going back to Blacksburg. I went back that Sunday, graduated in 1969, and the rest is history. I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.