This is when it gets interesting. Thanksgiving’s come and gone. Divisional races heat up. Old rivalries are amplified. The playoffs loom. Every win is more thrilling, and every loss more crushing. As hopes and expectations intensify, LIFE asked five photographers who, collectively, have covered football for close to eight decades to choose a handful of their own favorite pictures — photographs that capture the raw, brutal glory that plays out every Sunday in stadiums around the country.
Here are some clever devices that, over the years, have quietly furthered the culinary arts. Or at least tried to …
Do you want to use the entire turkey this Thanksgiving?
How about this year you use the turkey’s feathers and make a wedding gown? We know this sounds crazy… but it’s true.
In 1947, designer Barbara Orr Ehrhart (pictured) demonstrated her love of turkey not just by having it for dinner at her Oregon wedding, but also by making wedding dresses out of turkey feathers for herself and her bridesmaids. LIFE captured the oddball ceremony, feathers and all, in these photographs.
Pictured: President Harry Truman receives a turkey from visiting students.
Cranberries may not be as glamorous as turkey, as playful as yams, or as filling as stuffing, but cranberries have character, color … and antioxidants! A look back at their humble past and bright future.
Warriors are paid to fight — but that doesn’t mean that they always have to be happy about it, or that the fight is the only thing on their minds. One way for otherwise voiceless troops to express their feelings about the often-bloody task at hand is to literally write it out — on their helmets.
Above: Lyrics from a Misfits song, “Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?” decorate the helmet of Marine Cpl. Jonathan Eckert of Oak Lawn, IL, on patrol, October 2010, in Kajaki, Afghanistan.
Colin Needs Somebody to Give Him a Hug
($12.99 for the mini version, monsterfactory.net)
The city that holds the holiest spot in Islam — where Mohammed was born, where he began receiving the divine word of God, and where he won the victory that established Islam as a future major world religion — Mecca, Saudi Arabia, sees millions of the devout descend upon it every year for Eid al-Adha, the festival celebrating the sacrifice of Abraham. One of the Five Pillars of Islam dictates that every able-bodied Muslim make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his life. Those men who have made the trip are honored with the title Hajji. Here: A time exposure photograph shows the whirlpool of movement created by devout Muslims performing the tawaf, the circumambulation of the Kaaba, the climax of the hajj, in 1971.
