I was raised by a single mother — a teacher. She didn’t earn much, and unexpected expenses were always full-blown crises.

One autumn, her car broke down and the water heater in our mobile home died. One thing led to another, and Idaho Power shut off the electricity on the Friday before Thanksgiving.

The turkey in our refrigerator spoiled by Tuesday. Mom and I were looking at a chilly, dark holiday, with bologna sandwiches for dinner.

The old man next door, Mr. Saunders, rarely went outside except to berate kids whose baseballs bounced into his fenced yard. He had a scary, breathy voice, and whenever he shouted he began to cough.

We barely knew him, but somehow Saunders got wind of our predicament. On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, our power was inexplicably turned back on, and the next morning a Sears crew showed up to install a new water heater — refusing to say who’d paid for it.

My mom had a pretty good idea, though, and there were tears rolling down her cheeks when she knocked on his door to say thanks.

“I’ll pay you back,” she said.

“No you won’t,” he said. “Just come to Thanks-giving dinner.”

His tiny trailer was dimly lit and steeped in cigar smoke, and dinner consisted of ham hocks and fried potatoes.

“I don’t like most people,” Saunders explained as he dished the food. “But it’s Thanksgiving.”

Many Thanksgivings before, he was in France as part of the first contingent of American troops in World War I. He was wounded by a German gas-filled artillery shell.

Mustard gas may be the cruelest weapon ever devised. There are no immediate symptoms, but within a few hours the skin begins to itch and large blisters form, filled with yellow liquid.

The eyes are next. Conjunctivitis develops, then the eyelids swell shut.

But worse is to come. Mustard gas causes bleeding and blistering in the respiratory system, filling the lungs with fluid.

This goes on for weeks. Eventually, Saunders’ vision came back and his skin healed, but the shortness of breath was permanent.

He developed lung cancer, and by that Thanksgiving he was dying.

We talked far into the evening, sitting around the chipped vinyl-topped dinette in his tiny kitchen. He produced a dusty bottle of plum brandy, poured it into grape-jelly glasses, and we toasted his comrades.

A month later, Saunders broke with tradition and visited our place. As Mom and I sang Christmas carols, he listened — the old man didn’t have enough breath to join in — and stayed until midnight.

A week later, he was dead.

So this Thanksgiving, as on many Thanksgivings past, I’ll be drinking plum brandy.

Steve Crump may be reached at 735-3223. Hear him on KLIX-1310 at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.