Playing bingo with the goal of winning a turkey has never been high on my to-do list. Well, honestly, I must admit that I didn’t even know such an event existed until last year.Last November I was sitting at my desk in Luverne, creating advertisements for the Announcer, when paperwork for the Hills American Legion turkey bingo night came across my desk.I took great care in building the ad – after all, it was for my town’s Legionnaires and I wanted it to stand out in the paper.That day when I arrived home from work, I promptly told David, my husband, that we would be spending Saturday night downtown at the American Legion winning a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.Even as I type the sentence, it doesn’t make much sense; but the idea, however novel, seemed brilliant to me. I wanted my family’s Thanksgiving feast to come from playing bingo.When Saturday night came, David was still unsure of the idea, as was I. I didn’t think they were going to be giving away turkeys — maybe coupons for turkeys, or a discount on a turkey, but not real turkeys. My husband was on board because it was bingo and he has always had a fondness for games of chance.When we arrived at turkey bingo, we selected chairs off in the far corner. We were still very new in town, and separating ourselves from the folks we had not met seemed like the easiest way for us to concentrate on our bingo cards – after all, we wanted to be winners.The gaming started promptly at 7 p.m. and following the first cry of "Bingo!" all my dreams were confirmed – they really were giving away turkeys.Not just one turkey, but lots of turkeys. Every winner would get a whole frozen turkey that night.Knowing this turned up the heat on my desire to be a winner — I WANTED A TURKEY.When the next game started, we doubled our efforts, playing two cards each. There were about 25 people playing, so our chances of getting a bingo seemed pretty good.An hour passed and still no bingo for the Moore house. I was starting to run out of money, I had drunk three cups of coffee and eaten my share of goodies during the first 10 games. So I had to scale back our operation a bit. We no longer could afford to play two cards apiece.As we watched other families stand up and scream "Bingo!" or politely raise their arm and whisper, "I think I may have bingo," we noticed a trend. In one corner of the room, a group of visitors from the Elbers and Bush families kept winning all of the turkeys.Well, maybe not all of the turkeys, but I bet they took home enough poultry that night to feed the entire family for the month of December.I guess they had a hot stack of bingo cards and ours were all duds. The evening eventually came to an end without my getting to even pretend I had a bingo.I had taken my camera with me to the event thinking I could capture some exciting bingo moments on film – but I must have become so bitter by my struggles that I didn’t get any pictures.I probably complained about the night a bit to my family over the holidays – since I had promised to bring the main course and arrived empty-handed. Following that, I don’t think I have thought about it since, until…Monday night when I was driving to the compost pile, my husband noticed a sign in front of Orv’s that said,Turkey BingoSaturday NightAmerican Legion7-9I will be there on Saturday night, and I plan on bringing home a turkey. In fact, I don’t want to bring home just one turkey for Thanksgiving this year. I want to win two turkeys. That will give me a spare to keep around for Christmas dinner as well.The Veterans in our area stumbled upon a wonderful idea with turkey bingo. They put on the event the day after Veterans Day for a reason. I encourage families in the area to show up on Saturday with a fistful of dollars and a mindset for fun.Our area veterans deserve our support and they are kind enough to provide us entertainment and nourishment in the process.I don’t even eat turkey, but I sure would like to have this year’s Thanksgiving turkey handed to me by one of America’s heroes. Story ideas or comments can be emailed to Lexi Moore at lexim@star-herald.com or called in at 962-3561.
