Some left-overs from Thanksgiving 2009:
*This was our first major holiday without all the kids at home. Not easy. Our second oldest, Taylor, stayed out east near his campus and spent Turkey Day with his aunt, uncle and cousins in Washington, DC. From the pictures, they had a great time. Friday, he went to a friend’s house to hang out and by Saturday was back at the academic grindstone. For us, back in the heartland, it was Wednesday night that was the most difficult. Taylor stayed in his dorm that evening to get some homework and debate prep done. Apparently it was rather quiet…nearly abandoned. He talked about watching The Shining but, wisely, let that idea float away in the Red Rum of his imagination. Instead, after his work, he microwaved a frozen cheese potato and watched The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Taylor said it reminded him of being home. Not sure who is who.
**Driving home from work on Thanksgiving morning, I noticed how packed the grocery store parking lots were. It made me think back to when everything…I mean EVERYTHING…was closed on holidays. If you needed gasoline you’d better fill up the day before. If you needed more yams you’d better get them the day before. If you needed beer, cheese curds, new playing cards, coffee, new antenna for the TV so you can see the Packers trounce the Lions more clearly, you’d better stock up the day before. (That’s a Wisconsin list, by the way.) The idea that you can dash off to the store for something on Thanksgiving is still astonishing to me. Then, again, I find the idea that health clubs would be open on Thanksgiving morning to be nearly sacrilegious!
***Back in olden times, when I was just a tiny giblet myself, we always went to my Little Grandma’s apartment for the big feast. The second we came in the door, my dad and brothers would start asking if it was time to eat, yet, and, why was it taking so long and “next year, we’ll just order chicken from Stub Lang’s diner the day before if it’s going to be this way!” Little Grandma would just look at all of us and cackle. It was all very Rockwell-esque: good food, good football, good naps. But, for me, Thanksgiving also meant one of my brothers would take me out in our oldest brother’s Corvair and let me drive around the retirement village. It was a safe time for such under-age motoring since nobody was anywhere near outdoors. Unlike today, when it seems everyone thinks it’s necessary to take that big, healthy walk before and after the caloric intake, in those days, you just ate until you could no longer move on your own and then collapsed into a state of semi-consciousness until the smell of coffee and shuffling of cards roused you back to coherency. Anyway, whichever brother came to first, would take me out for a little tooling about the grounds. A child behind the wheel with a teenager, still in a stuffing stupor, supposedly in charge cruising about in a Corvair: Ralph Nader would toss his tofu turkey slices and range-free cranberries if he knew about it!
****Around our house, the Friday after Thanksgiving is Decoration Day. We put on our heavy winter coats, scarves, mittens…grab the hatchet and head out to find the perfect Christmas tree. We do this every year despite the fact that we use a fake evergreen stored in the basement. But, tradition is tradition. I do NOT take part in the shopping hysteria we see on the news. I only did such a thing once…by accident…more than 20 years ago. My wife’s family was in town and we decided to see a movie at Crown Center. It was the Bill Murray holiday classic, Scrooged. I had interviewed Mr. Murray in New York about this movie on one of those movie junkets I used to do for Channel 9, so, I was feeling pretty puffed up…”Yeah, Billy told me he loved makin’ this flick. ‘Course he was asking me for my opinion and I was honest with him. ‘Billy,’ I said ‘It’s inspired!’” It was at that point I noticed that my entire family had left me in the parking garage.
Before leaving the house on that Friday, I thought the shopping center would be mostly empty. I had never really heard of such a thing as Black Friday in regards to shopping. The phrase, Black Friday, meant one of two things to me: The financial panic of 1869…Fisk & Gould: naughty boys! Or, just about any Friday there was a dance during my high school days because I knew I’d be sitting in the ticket booth reading a book while the rest were dancing to Color My World.
We didn’t do much shopping on the day after Thanksgiving when I was a punk. Sometimes my dad would have to run to the hardware store and get some more hooks for the Christmas Tree ornaments. He also would stop for a bottle of Five-Star Brandy, for medicinal purposes only, knowing that it was time to fight that tree into the tree stand and make it appear as straight as possible.
Flash forward to that movie-going Friday: the place was packed. It shocked me. Who goes out on the Friday after Thanksgiving? When did this start happening? Does anybody know about this?
Needless to say, after that, I’ve made a point of NOT being anywhere near a cash register on that day-after-day.
*****That just about does it for our holiday weekend. Hope you had a great one with your family and friends. Oh, I did call my mom and, when she answered–her caller ID must be on the fritz–I hollered ”Happy Turkey Day!” She replied, calmly, “Oh, Joel, you know this isn’t your birthday.”
Gobble. Gobble.