Our esteemed Publisher Emeritus Gary Reid asked some of us in the office last week to offer up some favorite Thanksgiving memories to add to his column.

I claimed I would…if I had the time.

I didn’t etch out the time, but not long after Gary made his request, I ran across a memory on Facebook.

It was a picture of my late grandmother Mildred Swisher’s dining room table that I had taken in 2012.

The table was full of hundreds and hundreds of homemade noodles in various stages of drying.

The caption I wrote with it in 2012 was: “Homemade noodles drying on Grandma Mildred’s table. I’ve already claimed ownership Sarah, so don’t bother coming over unless you just want to visit grandma.”

Sarah is my cousin, Sarah Swisher Noll.

She, along with most of my other cousins, always liked to claim they were grandma’s favorite.

Bless their hearts.

But I ran across that memory on Facebook on the 12-year anniversary of me posting it.

Since then, Grandma Mildred has passed away.

With it went the sight of seeing those noodles drying on her kitchen table.

I don’t know that I have a specific Thanksgiving memory, but I do recall knowing that when I walked in and saw those noodles, good meals were ahead.

And while Grandma Mildred may be gone, the legacy of those noodles will live on.

Sarah and several other cousins made sure to learn the craft from grandma.

While we all miss the sight, we get to cherish that memory of her in a number of ways.

On the other side of my family - the Mitchells - there is another tradition.

It’s fighting over my grandma Kaye (Bishop) Mitchell’s apple pie.

My sister Whitney will greet her at the door to relieve my grandmother of carrying in the pie. She will then cut herself a slice and eat it before our holiday meals just to ensure she gets some of it.

Grandma Kaye’s apple pies are a picture of perfection.

They are expertly made and look too good to cut into - almost.

However. I don’t like apple pie, so I’m not one of the ones fighting over it.

I know it sounds un-American, but I just can’t force myself to like them no matter how good they look and how good they smell.

So although I don’t get to savor those bites of Grandma Kaye’s apple pies, I do remember the dozens of times sitting in her kitchen “helping” her make them.

I would watch as she went through the steps, all the while wishing I would like the end product.

But Grandma Kaye always had a treat for me.

She would take the scraps from the crust and combine them, then let me roll it out on the pull-out shelf she had underneath her countertop (that was always the coolest part of her kitchen to me).

Then she’d butter it up and let me put small doses of sugar and cinnamon on it before baking it to a golden brown awesomeness.

It was my own mini-apple pie…without those nasty apples.

Grandma always took care of me.

I didn’t get to see my family fight over grandma’s pie this Thanksgiving as I headed west to spend time with my wife’s family.

But there’s no doubt Whitney got her piece early and there wasn’t a crumb left.

Grandma says she can’t bake pies like she used to, but the way they’re devoured would say otherwise.

So every holiday season when I eat homemade noodles, I’ll think of my Grandma Mildred. When I consume massive amounts of dessert, I will recall those days sitting in my Grandma Kaye’s kitchen working with her to make my own.

Those, Gary, are my Thanksgiving memories.