This cartoon turkey is sad because for awhile there in 2006, it looked like Ray was not going to eat him.

Thanksgiving 2008 marked the third year in a row that I have taken a Thanksgiving meal at Hollyhock Hill on North College here in Indianapolis. My last two gratitude-themed trips to the 'Hock have been enjoyable, but nothing will ever compare to that first miraculous evening in 2006.

At the time, I didn't have much social structure in my life. Not only was my immediate family disintegrating in the early stages of (what would come to be) a very long and emotional divorce but I'd also recently broken up with my girlfriend. While this left me with a great excuse to spend the holiday sitting around in my underwear attempting to beat the original Legend of Zelda in less than 45 minutes, it put a bit of a damper on my prospects for a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

True, I had some vague plans to take in a low-key turkey dinner at my mother's house across town but for reasons not immediately available to me years later, even these plans fell through (if you know my mother, you'd know this isn't especially unusual).

An unexpected call
Before I had the time to fully absorb the ramifications of this turn of events — i.e. that it meant I would not be eating at all — I received an unexpected phone call from my old friend and former roommate Yoosuk (his actual name). He was in from out of town to eat Thanksgiving dinner with his family but had managed to somehow misplace them (if you know Yoosuk, you'd know this isn't especially unusual).

I explained I was in a similar situation and we decided to team up and get some Chinese take-out as an impromptu Thanksgiving meal. After all, in that Christmas Story movie, the Chinese restaurant was open on Christmas Eve. Surely, we figured, that would apply to Thanksgiving too.

Turned out, of course, we were wrong. In fact, not only was the Chinese restaurant closed but everything was closed. As our stomachs rumbled, we desperately searched the desolate Broad Ripple area for something — anything — we could eat. Even McDonald's was closed!

This problem was complicated by the fact that in my apartment, I don't have any groceries. Well, unless you count a few unopened packets of Taco Bell "Fire" sauce as groceries. Either way, it was rapidly looking like there wasn't going to be any sustenance for us at all, which is one of the ultimate ironies of Thanksgiving: if you don't have any place to go, you probably also don't have anything to eat.

'Are we hallucinating?'
Just as we gave up hope and started heading back to the apartment to chew on the cardboard box my Nintendo Wii came in, we noticed something strange just off the road, hidden away in a small glade in a residential area — what appeared to be a brightly lit parking lot filled with cars.

Perplexed, we went in for a closer look. What we discovered was unbelievable, given the barren conditions we'd encountered everywhere else. Not only was this restaurant open but it was brimming with life. The parking lot was completely full and families dressed in their Sunday finest were streaming in and out of a humble white cottage as the aroma of Thanksgiving filled the air.

As we'd never even heard of this place despite living about a mile away from it, we were convinced this "Hollyhock Hill" was either a hallucination brought on by our nutritional deprivation or a mysterious ghost restaurant that appears out of the fog one night each year to give wayward spirits such as us a place to dine.

When we stepped inside, the anachronistic decor and relentlessly cheery attitude from the waitresses dressed in Alice In Wonderland outfits on a major holiday didn't offer us much help. Had we died of starvation and the afterlife was a homestyle restaurant operated by Disney characters?

Despite our shabby dress compared to the dapper duds sported by everyone else — and the fact that we were told reservations filled up months in advance — we were promptly seated and immediately served plate after plate of home-made apple cider, fresh cranberries, cottage cheese, green beans, mashed potatoes, corn, turkey, stuffing, and ice cream. If we wanted any more of anything, all we had to do was ask!

As our bellies swelled, we marveled at our fortune. In a matter of moments, we'd gone from having literally nothing to eat to gorging ourselves on the most bountiful Thanksgiving dinner we could imagine. And, indeed, we'd gone from having no Thanksgiving to having a miraculous one. So while my subsequent trips have been somewhat less supernatural — turns out Yoosuk and I were still very much alive and that the restaurant doesn't vanish back into the ether at midnight — I am always grateful to pay homage to that chance encounter in 2006.