Ep. 42 Giving Thanks: Holiday Traditions of the Tennessee Supreme Court

In this episode of Tennessee Court Talk, Samantha Fisher leads Chief Justice Holly Kirby, Justice Sarah Campbell, Justice Dwight Tarwater and Justice Mary Wagner  down memory lane. The discussion focuses on traditions the justices had during the Thanksgiving holiday as children and the traditions that have created with their own families they celebrate with today. 

This episode is for all audiences. 

Transcript

00;00;00;03 - 00;00;26;25
Host
Welcome to Tennessee Court Talk. I'm Samantha Fisher, Communications Director for the Administrative Office of the Courts. And I have the honor of being your host for this episode, which is a little what you might call off script once in a while. We like to go behind the scenes of the Judiciary. Maybe Beyond the Bench is a better way to say it, but the idea here is the men and women who wear the black robe, who oftentimes seem very intimidating.

00;00;26;28 - 00;00;50;01
Host
Well, there are people too, and we like to take the opportunity to get to know them. And for you, our audience, to get to know them better, to. So as we consider the season Thanksgiving, we have gathered several of the justices of the Supreme Court to talk about what this time of year means to them, their traditions and stories from their families and their hometowns.

00;00;50;04 - 00;01;05;09
Host
So we welcome Chief Justice Holly Kirby, Justice Mary Wagner, Justice Sarah Campbell and Justice Dwight Tarwater and Justice Tarwater. I thought I might start with you will start on the east side of the state and then work our way west. Welcome to the podcast.

00;01;05;09 - 00;01;07;05
Justice Tarwater
Thanks Samantha. Glad to join.

00;01;07;10 - 00;01;15;05
Host
So tell us a little bit about, you know, growing up in East Tennessee. What kinds of things did you enjoy this time of year? What what kind of influenced you growing up?

00;01;15;09 - 00;01;47;24
Justice Tarwater
You know, Samantha, thanks for helping me remember some of those fun days I grew up in in Knoxville. My my father was a, World War Two veteran, and he and my mother had a house in the suburbs, but he still owned the family farm when I was a child. And for my dad, Thanksgiving meant the opening day of hunting season.

00;01;47;26 - 00;02;15;17
Justice Tarwater
And while I don't hunt anymore, I went with him as much as I could as a child. And Thanksgiving was always a traditional day for that. And we would go to the family farm and, we would be together as a father and a son, and, he taught me how to shoot a gun and how to, enjoy, the outdoors and to enjoy the heritage.

00;02;15;17 - 00;02;47;19
Justice Tarwater
That farm was, the farm where the first Tarwater He came to this country, settled in the late 1700s. So it's in Knox County. I will I will remember Thanksgiving because I remember my dad and, the time that we spent. And I liked it because we would, we would hunt on Thursday, and then we would eat pretty much the rest of the day, and then we'd hunt again on Friday, and then we'd go to the University of Tennessee football game.

00;02;47;19 - 00;02;59;15
Justice Tarwater
Usually it was Kentucky, Thanksgiving weekend. And, that was, Thanksgiving weekend for the child, Dwight Tarwater.

00;02;59;17 - 00;03;14;14
Host
That sounds wonderful. And we've noticed just from live streaming, you know, Supreme Court arguments that that some of those farm analogies have worked their way into the questions that you have and really help people understand the case.

00;03;14;16 - 00;03;31;01
Justice Tarwater
I, I hope they helped people understand the case. Perhaps it helped me, understand the case. Chief Justice Kirby often asked me if, I'll have a cow question, during the argument today.

00;03;31;03 - 00;03;34;00
Justice Kirby
Usually the answer is yes.

00;03;34;02 - 00;03;36;16
Host
Give us an example. Give us a cow question.

00;03;36;19 - 00;03;38;25
Justice Tarwater
A cow question.

00;03;38;27 - 00;03;46;10
Justice Campbell
I know I've heard you say you can't put the cow back in the barn. Yeah, once or twice.

00;03;46;13 - 00;03;52;20
Justice Tarwater
Yeah. That's true. Once the cows out, she's hard to get back in the barn.

00;03;52;23 - 00;03;55;01
Host
Excellent. All right, well, moving west.

00;03;55;01 - 00;04;03;12
Host
Of it, justice Campbell. Well, you're from East Tennessee, from Rogersville, but I know you. You represent Middle Tennessee, so maybe you can give us something of both now.

00;04;03;12 - 00;04;31;26
Justice Campbell
Sure, sure. I did grow up mostly in East Tennessee and, you know, have such great memories of Thanksgiving. Most of our Thanksgivings when I was kid were spent with my mom's side of the family. She's one of seven kids, and it's a very large family. Tons of of cousins, around my age. And, actually, most of our Thanksgiving was spent not in Tennessee, but in Ohio.

00;04;31;29 - 00;04;58;12
Justice Campbell
A number of my mom's siblings lived in Northern Kentucky and Ohio. And so we would usually gather, at my Aunt Elsie’s farm in Wilmington, Ohio, which was loads of fun. So we would, you know, get in the car and travel up there for Thanksgiving. My, my mom and her sisters and my, my mama, my mom's mom were just exceptional cooks.

00;04;58;14 - 00;05;18;11
Justice Campbell
My moms still a wonderful cook. I wish I had inherited some of that ability, but, you can ask my kids. I did not, so we would go there. But the whole crew, all my cousins, my my aunts and uncles, and my grandmother, when she was living with, would join us there as well and just eat all day.

00;05;18;13 - 00;05;39;25
Justice Campbell
We'd play football, you know, we'd play lots of games with the cousins and we would, you know, often end up either walking around the farm or all the kids would pile in a wagon, in the tractor, it would pull us around and it was just, such fun. Have so many good memories from those days. And we haven't been able to to do that with extended family for a long time.

00;05;39;25 - 00;06;04;12
Justice Campbell
But, you know, now we have our own traditions. So this year will be we'll be heading back to Rogersville. And my boys are very much looking forward to playing football in the yard, but their cousins, you know, it's been funny moving to Nashville, as you know, Samantha, living in Nashville, I think that's, people kind of rush to put up their Christmas decorations.

00;06;04;12 - 00;06;21;14
Justice Campbell
It's I think it's because a lot of people have had their Christmas decorations put up for them, and you have to get on a pretty long list to do that. And so the Christmas decorations in Nashville go up really early, which is, my husband and I just are not happy about. We are huge Thanksgiving fans. I it's my favorite holiday.

00;06;21;14 - 00;06;48;02
Justice Campbell
It's my husband's favorite holiday. And we we have a very bright line rule that we do not put up our Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. I recently purchased a an inflatable turkey that will be. As a form of protest, really to all of the early Christmas decorations. So that will be, donning our yard shortly after Halloween.

00;06;48;05 - 00;06;54;07
Host
Yeah, I love that. And I noticed that the Christmas decorations are coming out even even before Halloween.

00;06;54;07 - 00;06;58;13
Justice Campbell
Now, I have noticed that too. It's shocking.

00;06;58;16 - 00;07;03;01
Host
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. I can't wait to see the blow up turkey. It's going to be good.

00;07;03;04 - 00;07;10;09
Justice Campbell
It's going to be great. It's sad. The first I think this is year one. We'll add a Thanksgiving decoration annually is my hope.

00;07;10;11 - 00;07;13;24
Host
Excellent. And get more inflatables.

00;07;13;26 - 00;07;14;28
Justice Tarwater
Maybe a cow.

00;07;14;29 - 00;07;15;26
Justice Kirby


00;07;16;02 - 00;07;17;23
Justice Campbell
Maybe a cow. In honor of Justice Tarwater.

00;07;17;23 - 00;07;20;27
Host
Now, Justice Tarwater told me, you dressed up as a turkey once.

00;07;21;14 - 00;07;51;00
Justice Tarwater
I thought you were going to give me the attorney client privilege on that story. In the eighth grade, played the role of the turkey in the Thanksgiving play, and it earned me a nickname. Turkey. Or some of my old friends still call me Turk. And my high school reunion.

00;07;51;02 - 00;07;59;12
Justice Tarwater
And that all dated back to, I guess, Thanksgiving in 1968. So there you go.

00;07;59;15 - 00;08;01;10
Host
Was a memorable performance.

00;08;01;12 - 00;08;08;05
Justice Tarwater
Yeah, I was some, typecast. Oh.

00;08;08;07 - 00;08;11;02
Host
Chief justice Kirby, any any turkey costumes in your past?

00;08;11;02 - 00;08;26;05
Justice Kirby
I have no turkeys lurking in my past. Unfortunately, that would be a very colorful, colorful memory. And I didn’t get any nicknames from costumes or anything like that, so I can’t cop to that.

00;08;26;07 - 00;08;34;26
Host
Now, I know you were born in Memphis, but you graduated from high school in Columbia, Tennessee. So were you moving back and forth? What was that?

00;08;34;29 - 00;09;04;28
Justice Kirby
No, my my family. I grew up in Memphis till I was about 15. And then, my family moved to Columbia, Tennessee, and so I graduated from high school there. And I, I claim both Memphis and Columbia as as my hometown. And, when I've been to high school reunions, I've often attended both high school, the high school I would have graduated from had we stay in Memphis and then also Columbia Central High.

00;09;05;02 - 00;09;09;22
Host
Any stories or traditions that, influenced you growing up?

00;09;09;24 - 00;09;41;13
Justice Kirby
Well, I'm definitely in Justice Campbell's camp. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It is sacrilege to put up Christmas decorations early. I really believe in honoring Thanksgiving, and it's it's the one holiday where, you gather around people you love. Is there anything better than that? That's, that's such a wonderful American tradition. And it is my all time favorite holiday.

00;09;41;16 - 00;10;16;12
Justice Kirby
So growing up, I wish I'd had I would have loved to have come from a big family with a lot of cousins like Justice Campbell did. But most of our Thanksgivings were my mom and me, cooking Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving dinner while, my brothers looked up exotic insults in the dictionary who that they could hurl at each other and came up with most bizarre games instead of doing anything constructive.

00;10;16;14 - 00;10;53;14
Justice Kirby
And my mother and, neither one of us were good cooks at all, so it was looking back. I had no idea. I thought it was fabulous. And I would, in, school, in Columbia, attended a home ec class and, came away with recipes that involved, there was one recipe. It's very sad looking back on it, but it was a recipe, that involved, like, canned fruit and many marshmallows and sour cream.

00;10;53;14 - 00;11;41;22
Justice Kirby
And it was it was terrible. But my mother, my mother said, oh, Holly, make your fruit salad. So. So, but Thanksgiving food, traditional Thanksgiving food is my all time favorite. I love turkey and dressing and all, all of the things associated with, with Thanksgiving and just the of the whole tradition of looking back on the year and thinking of all the blessings that you had in, in the course of the year, sometimes losses to, but usually those losses come from things that you have loved.

00;11;41;25 - 00;11;49;00
Justice Kirby
And so all of that goes into a rich and beautiful life, and Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on that.

00;11;49;03 - 00;12;07;11
Host
No, it really is an important time to take stock and reflect and and even think ahead to before everything kicks into high gear with, with Christmas and holidays and all the things that go along with that. I love what you said about the fruit salad. I think there are so many stories to be told about recipes gone wrong.

00;12;07;13 - 00;12;25;24
Host
And just a couple of years ago at our house, we of course were doubling the sweet potato recipe, but we didn't double the cook time. And so what we ended up with was like the soupy thing, and it was like everyone's favorite dish. And you know, it was hard to recover from that. But, now that's part of our story that we retell every year.

00;12;25;26 - 00;12;27;16
Justice Kirby
That's great.

00;12;27;19 - 00;12;33;00
Host
Justice Wagner, you, grew up in the Memphis area. Tell us about your family life.

00;12;33;00 - 00;12;52;24
Justice Wagner
Mean this recipe for my boys. Call it pink salad. That so our Thanksgiving tradition growing up was everybody would come to our house and it would be 30 or 40 people. And it was amazing because we always eat lunch, which my husband has had to adjust to, instead of dinner. But that way we could eat a big meal and hang out all afternoon.

00;12;52;24 - 00;13;13;29
Justice Wagner
And then dinner was leftovers. And so it was a great day. My mom, was responsible for the all the food, and she has her famous pink salad, which growing up I thought was awful because it was whipped cream and cherry pie filling, but she called it salad. I boys think it's the best thing because it's frozen, and so they think they're eating ice cream for lunch.

00;13;14;02 - 00;13;14;25
Justice Kirby
Trick.

00;13;14;28 - 00;13;32;18
Justice Wagner
And so we still, even though Thanksgiving has now shifted to my house, every year, we still have pink salad made by grandma. And that is one of our, our favorite traditions. And we added a few years ago an inflatable turkey to, I think it was our Covid relief because we didn't have our 30 people together for Thanksgiving.

00;13;32;18 - 00;13;35;17
Justice Campbell
So we had to add some fun with the inflatable turkey.

00;13;35;19 - 00;13;58;06
Host
That's good. Well, this has been wonderful. I love hearing all these stories of growing up in Tennessee. I'm not from Tennessee myself. We would always go to Pennsylvania, you know, for our Thanksgiving traditions. But, and of course, it changes over the years and you pass some of it along to your kids. And, and it certainly is a wonderful time of year to just take a breath and think about all the things that, that we're grateful for.

00;13;58;09 - 00;14;01;18
Host
Any parting thoughts before we, wrap it up.

00;14;01;24 - 00;14;35;01
Justice Campbell
I'll just add just a quick favorite memory. We, during Covid, you know, just as Wagner mentioned, just tell the holiday it was so different. But for a couple of years, really. But, you know, in, in November 2020. So kind of during the height of the pandemic, we, one tradition we have in our family or that we've had for the past few years is, I cut out little paper leaves and we have it think we call the Thankful tree, but we just kind of write things that we're thankful for, on these leaves, and then we hang them on the tree.

00;14;35;03 - 00;14;57;09
Justice Campbell
And that particular year, my husband had the good idea to take the thankful tree outside. And so we have did something similar just on the, at the end of our driveway so that folks walking by could kind of write something that they're thankful for and take some time to reflect. And that ended up being just such a warm, memory for us.

00;14;57;09 - 00;15;24;04
Justice Campbell
And it was really a moving thing to see what people wrote on those leaves during a pretty dark time for a lot of people, certainly for people who are living on their own or, you know, who couldn't be with family that they would ordinarily gather with. But there is still so much to be thankful for. And just to, you know, to Justice Kirby's point, I think even in seasons when, you know, we're grieving or we have things, it things that were hard.

00;15;24;06 - 00;15;35;26
Justice Campbell
I think still, Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on how much we have to be thankful for, and, and even in times of loss, you know, that we can be thankful for, the memories that we have.

00;15;35;29 - 00;16;21;13
Justice Tarwater
If I could just, add one thing to that, traditionally, it's it's interesting when being thankful is a virtue. And sometimes when you get a little older, you look with thanks on things a little differently for lifetime blessings. And, they fall into sometimes a different category. Relationships, family, careers, partners, children, grandchildren. And, thanks for giving us the opportunity to talk about being thankful.

00;16;21;18 - 00;16;32;02
Host
Thank you for serving the state and for taking some time to share your your own heritage and the stories that have made you who you are. And, that's lovely. Thank you so much.