As reported in the Journal Sentinel this morning, Professor Jay Grenig hosted a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner for a number of law students and faculty yesterday.
The Grenigs don’t host the event every year, but when they do, it’s quite the feast. Jay got the hang of timing dinners for large groups back when he worked as a weekend cook in a sorority house at Sharon’s school, Willamette University in Oregon.
Will Rakestraw thought he’d have to work Thanksgiving, so he didn’t buy a ticket home to Dayton, Ohio. He was just glad to get turkey.
“I thought I was going to have a ‘Christmas Story’ Thanksgiving, with Chinese food for dinner,” he said.
Thursday, guests helped themselves to four heritage turkeys from a family farm in Kansas, baked Berkshire ham from pigs raised on a family farm in Iowa, tarragon bread dressing, cranberry sauce prepared two ways (smooth or rough, depending on their preference), pumpkin pie, apple pie with caramel custard, homemade ice cream and more.
Most of the students – who happened to all be guys in their 20s – gathered around the television to chow down and watch the Seahawks-Cowboys match-up.
Some knew each other; some didn’t. They talked football in a den filled with law texts.
Astrada didn’t have the time or money to visit family for the weekend in Florida.
“You can’t argue with football,” Astrada said. “That’s how I spend most of my Thanksgivings anyway.”
Klitzke and her husband, Ramon, a retired Marquette law professor, spend most Thanksgivings by themselves because it’s getting too difficult to go to California to visit their grandchildren. This year, they opted for some company.
This is one of the reasons why I chose to go into debt to come to Marquette as opposed to taking some of the grants I was offered to go elsewhere. The faculty around here has always astounded me in their compassion and willingness to open themselves to students. When I graduate, it won’t be the law or procedure that I’ll remember most; it will be the professors I was lucky to have that will impact the way I practice law most.
I’m glad to see the people at Professor Grenig’s home had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope everyone else did as well.