One thing I realized as an adult is that every family lives at one level or another of dysfunction. Our level was the Grand Dysfunctional level ...and therefore the stuff of legend...I always thought we should be issued a plaque or something.
As a teenager in the 70's, I was part of the Baby boomer youth generation and it's big rebellion with our parents, the Greatest Generation. They were in a complete quandry as to just what the hell the kids were rebelling against . The clash mostly came to a head on holidays...our house was no exception...
One Thanksgiving in particular, is the stuff of legends...and so it goes.
My mother was a partial cook,mainly weekends and holidays...and it would take at least three Brandy Alexanders for her to get through the night...Thanksgiving was a challenge for her this year, because her husband Bill , our stepfather, had invited his cranky 90 year old last-survivor-of-the-Johnstown-flood-when-will- this-woman-ever-die-mother over for Thanksgiving....her name was Daisy (good God I named my dog that, is that some weird Jungian thing?) and Daisy didn't like my mom or the fact that her son had packed her off to the the Lutheran Home to spend her final days among the quilt makers.
Daisy was parked strategically in the sunporch and and barking unrecognizable orders into the air as Bill crept into the vodka...my mom in the kitchen, was announcing to no one in general that the cooking would begin and was intermittently rousting my sister and me out of bed with the mantra.."This is not the Hilton, you girls better get up and help with dinner".
I dragged my teenager self down to the kitchen to find my mother deep into Brandy ALexander Uno and her arm up to her elbow into the cavity of the turkey...I presume it had to do with the filling... God I hope so...I must of had a strange look on my face..so mother in her most grand and almost slurred way said "You know I could've been a surgeon."...well there's your explanation, pardner.
The turkey stuffed and silenced was carried and placed in the double oven on the wall.
I could hear Daisy's raspy voice yelling something from the sunporch which sent my stepfather, Bill straight out of the room and back to the liquour cabinet....
as teenager's we can never know the stress adults are under, until we become adults..all we know is that something is brewing and we want to be around to catch any loose change that falls on the ground when it's all over.
Hours later, my sister sauntered on down and another discussion about the Hilton began..apparently we are not princesses and my mother is not our maid and yada yada yada...oops I think I just rolled my eyes ...the requisite snotty teenage girl reaction to a lecture...oh and another thing if you think I was put on this earth just to clean up after you two, you are GREATLY mistaken...
Daisy barks again from the sunporch, you know the woman could've caught fire and no one would ever bother to go check...Bill heads to the vodka...my mom is now melting down over the fact that nobody helped peel the potatoes and this is ..say together... NOT THE HILTON (of course I'm wondering if we ever did stay in a Hilton and I could use a frame of reference here). The eye rolling begins and oh we are caught mid roll as my mom downs another Brandy Alexander...and the pitch is going up and up and....who is going to help me make this meal..how late did you girls stay out last night..this doesn't all happen by magic you know..I am not the maid....no one helps me around here...
and out of the corner of my eye....
I see Bill...
did he just open the oven door?
wait a minute...does he have the turkey...
where is he going....
I yelled something like "hey"...
my mother and my sister and I stop dead mid-yell....
we can hear the front door open...
we all start making our way through the hall to the door...
just in time to hear Bill saying " You want help with the turkey, here's your damn turkey"...
and then a large muffled thud.
He had dropped kicked the turkey into the yard...
the three of us stood stunned in the door way...
Bill walked right past us back into the house,wiping his hands....
a suburban Pontius Pilate.
My mother didn't skip a beat, she looked at the brutalized Butter Ball in the yard and said. "I am NOT cleaning that up."
Of course not...this is ..not the Hilton...and you aren't ...the maid.
..........
Years later we wrote a song called "Drop Kick that Bird" It was played in rotation on WXXX...my mom called everyone she knew to tell them to request it.
It became our Thanksgiving story...no pilgrims, no Indians no maize...no, just remember when Bill drop kicked that bird....
The neighborhood dogs were thankful for the free meal in the grass and I was amazed at the quickness of their removal of a carcass.
Bill was thankful it shut Daisy up for awhile.
My mother was thankful she actually didn't have to cook the rest of the meal.
My sister was thankful for the distraction from her breaking curfew.
My uncle Denny was thankful that we stopped by , although unannounced ,and ate turkey at his house.
And ...I was thankful that the word Hilton wasn't used the rest of the night.
Happy Thanksgiving, from one Grand Dysfunctional family to another...all we can do is live in victory and don't stress over getting it all right...leave the perfection to God.
....
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