HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

On holidays my mind tends to wander back in time and think of how I have enjoyed past celebrations.

I came from two very different families. My father was 14 years younger than the youngest of his 3 siblings and my mother was the third oldest of her 7 siblings.

By the time I was old enough to remember my parents had chosen to alternate which family they would spend each holiday with so they didn’t have to leave one party as it was starting to get to another party as it was dying down. I had 46 cousins on my mom’s side added to the 6 kids in our family there were 52. Thirteen of the cousins lived in New York but, as you can imagine, the parties got pretty chaotic. On my dad’s side I had 6 cousins, the youngest was a few years older than my oldest brother Pete and most of them were much older and had kids of their own.

All of my Thanksgivings were fun. I enjoyed the meal; regardless of the fact that I was a picky eater. I always filled up on Thanksgiving.

My brother Pat reminded me of a Thanksgiving held at our house when my older brothers were “helping” my dad prepare the turkey. At one point they queried, “What’s that bag of stuff? My dad answered, “Turkey gizzards.” The interrogation continued, “What’s that big piece?” My dad, with the calmness of a father who is watching the three oldest while preparing the prize turkey and doing a myriad other things replied, “Why this is the heart, and legend has it that if you swallow it whole you get your wish.” Pat interpreted that to mean you will end up in paradise because it was much too large to swallow whole, anyway the questions slowed at that point.

EDITORS NOTE: My father was an excellent father, husband and overall man and would never have let anything happen to any of his charges, no matter how many questions they had.

When we were little we found a few cousins near our ages at the gatherings for my mom’s side and we would play, eat, then play some more! I don’t know how the collective parents there did it. We would run non stop, in about five different age ranges. They would successfully round us up for dinner, and release us to our craziness as the parents cleaned up from the feast. There was always a lot of smoke in the air too. Some of the dads/uncles smoked pipes or cigars, but it was mostly aunts and uncles cigarette smoke. It was well before the, “Yes I mind very much if you smoke” add campaign had run. As far as I could tell, as a child, nobody did mind.

The years that we celebrated at my dad’s side were much different, but fun nonetheless. We were loved to death by this older group. For awhile we were the only kids around and that garnered many hugs and treats, which was not a bad thing at all. The parties were always held on the 600 block of Latrobe, in Chicago where my dad was raised. His sisters had bought the house. Aunt Ethel lived on the first floor with Uncle Bill, their only child was married and out of the house. Aunt Virginia was on the second floor of the Chicago style two flat with Uncle Joe, and my cousin Bob who was about 10 years older than me. Virginia’s two older girls were married and out of the house. Her oldest girl Pat had 3 kids who were all older than I was. Then Grandpa lived in the attic for several years before moving to an apartment next door.

The parties were all held in the basement (We are part Bohemian), but my siblings and I would often slip upstairs and raid Aunt Virginia’s candy dish which was always full when we arrived and empty when we left.

As we grew older the parties changed. I remember a party in Glenview, two of the cousins in that house, a boy and a girl, were very close to my age. They were Irish twins (about 14 months apart), we snuck out to a house nearby and met with a small group of their friends. At about 16 years old we had a couple of bottles of booze- I don’t know which party those came from ours or theirs- but we drank quite a lot of it and I ended up “making out” with one of the girls. I must not have been a good kisser (Very inexperienced at the time) because parents showed up and we left quickly. When I told my cousin that I would like to date that girl he never got back to me. What’s the saying? “She’s just not that into you.”

As time marched on, and we got even older, my bother Paul was renting a house not far from our parents home with his new wife Deb. They needed to borrow my parent’s turkey roaster to host Thanksgiving that year. The roaster was on loan to a cousin in Chicago and Paul had to run out there to pick it up. This cousin had a favorite “watering hole” and invited my three older brothers to have a drink with her to thank them for making the long drive. It was a snowy day and Paul was driving his ’67 Mustang. As Paul tells it, he knew the roads might be slick so as he started home from a bar in Chicago he pushed the Mustang a little on the entrance ramp and it held the road well. He looked ahead and saw it would be a tight merge onto the busiest expressway in the Chicago area at the time, The Eisenhower.

Evidently the bottom of the entrance ramp had not been plowed as well as the portion Paul tested. With turkey roaster and one passenger in the car (One brother had met them at the bar) Paul hit the gas. His 289 cubic inch V-8 engine with a 4 barrel carburetor responded. 

Paul said during the first 360 degree turn he was pleased to see that the heavy traffic had noticed his unorthodox entry into the roadway and slowed down, separating and allowing his out of control race car to complete its’ unscheduled pirouette. Paul said during the second spin he was able to see that Pete was handling the situation pretty well, and some traffic was carefully passing them at about 65 to 70 m.p.h. Paul was hoping that would be it, but as fate would have it, his out of control pony wanted one more spin. Paul said he was more concerned with the third spin because it was obvious to him that it would leave him traveling about 50 m.p.h., backwards, onto the snow covered grass on the side of the road. The uncooperative car finally rolled to a stop, only a few feet off of the road, facing Eastbound towards the speeding Westbound traffic.

Paul and Pete had more to be thankful for that year and my parents have both passed on without hearing this story.

My sister Pam reminded me of another Thanksgiving around that time when someone brought a game called CHUG-A-LUG. Although it sounds very innocent this game was not. My friend Gary was dating my little sister Polly so he was over for Thanksgiving, Pam was there with her husband Neil, Paul and Deb were there and they brought Deb’s sister Trudy, Pete and Pat were probably there with their dates, and I was there. I would describe the game as a variation of truth or dare that included a lot of penalties that “forced” the participants to drink various amount of alcohols.

On this particular Thanksgiving my parents had prepared the meal, then my dad took my mom into the city to see her family.

The game participants ranged in age from 18 to 30 or so. I don’t think my parents had any thought of getting a “babysitter” for us, at least they didn’t until they got home.

Mom and dad walked in to see barrettes in my hair, I was wearing a girl’s shirt, Gary had no shirt on and Polly was wearing his shirt, one of the guys might have been wearing a bra outside of his shirt there were shot glasses on the table, empty beer bottles all around and a lot of laughing.

I guess I should end here before there is any consideration of statutes of limitation or similar concerns, you might have noticed that each story has been a little less innocent than the one before it.

Please comment on any interesting Thanksgiving stories you have. I hope you’ve enjoyed mine.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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