Thanksgiving Letter for my Nuclear Family

I'm a family kinda guy. So every once in a while, I get all mushy and write a serious letter to my friends on the net about some sugary, Disneyesque kinda thang that happens at a family get together. This is one of those sentimental, nuclear family kinda thangs.

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To my fiends (but not my enemas):

Just thought I'd share my Thanksgiving Day with you.

It started by me being hit by a quark just as I was getting out of bed. A large, very green, and not-too-theoretical one. No strings attached, as far as I could tell. It had to happen on a holiday, when I'm off work anyway, right?

It hit me right in the solar plexus, breaking several ribs and tearing some ligaments. So, instead of spending the day with my family, I was in the Emergency Room of the Georgia Tech Particle Physics Lab.

I was on the phone about noon with my brother Dave (# 381), who said that nearly everyone said to say hi. I should tell you we are the quintessential nuclear family. There were supposed to be 3 more people here this year than last year (235 by count), as we had 3 new additions to the family. I was the only one not making it.

As a PhD probed my chest cavity with a helium-filled sphere, and a masters-level co-ed stopped my bleeding, Dave described the scene. He said that the more people got there, the livelier things got. Everyone seemed to just glow. The place had gotten so hot with all the family there, that even with the windows open and the whole house fan on, sucking 35 degree air through, the walls were starting to discolor.

I heard a kid in the background scream, "Aunt Bertha's finally here!" Dave said, "Well, that's everyone but you..." I started to reply, when I heard Aunt Bertha's laugh drift through the phone. I could easily visualize the scene - all of them crammed in the giant basement we had finished as 1 big room just for this occasion, all my family, including surviving cousins, nephews, etc - anyone left from the old days in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Alamogordo - the Curies, the Raydons, the Pleughtohniums. The phone started to buzz, and I heard hollering and apparent pandemonium. The only phrase I could make out was Dad yelling something that sounded like "critical mass", when with a loud noise, the phone went dead.

Every light in the building went out. A couple of seconds later, the building felt like it was in an earthquake. Right after that, the sound of a terrific explosion shook us again. One of the attending EEs ran outside to look, and came running back in a moment later, describing a mushroom cloud off to the northwest. I alone knew the exact location.

Later I found out it was a small blast, taking out only 3 blocks, although a somewhat larger area still glows softly at night. I will visit there as soon as I am able, to leave some flowers, if they survive the hike in.

The co-ed with the tourniquet around my heart touched my face gently and asked, "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"Because I'll never get to taste the new pumpkin pie recipe Aunt Bertha was going to bring!", I sobbed.

I was wrong. Later, one of the profs brought me some glowing orange stuff he had found outside. It was delicious. Meanwhile, I have proposed to the co-ed (her name is Linda), and we will be married in a month.

I can hardly wait. In just a quarter of a century or so, there might be enough of us to start having these family reunions again.

Happy Thanksgiving from me & the rest of the turkeys@Roadkills-R-Us

 

Copyright 1988, 1994, 2014 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

A Dozen Random Thanksgiving Thoughts

A Baker's dozen... even more apropro since that is Sharon's maiden name!

1. As a kid, one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving was the artwork at school. Whether coloring Pilgrims and Indians, using construction paper to make giant turkeys and maize, or drawing cornucopia spilling out food (once including a cooked turkey and a pan of dressing), I loved it.
2. For years I thought dressing and stuffing were always one and the same.[1]
3. My first idea that they were different was that it was dressing until we ate too much, then it became stuffing.
4. Around age 5 or 6 I thought we should dress up as Pilgrims or Indians for Thanksgiving. We did have to dress up a bit for the meal, but only in a nicer than playing outside sort of way. Having to wear a starched button down to eat convinced me that if I had to dress up, it should be as an Indian, not a Pilgrim. Growing up out west, the Indians I was familiar with didn't wear as much as the those around Plymouth Rock likely did, especially late in the fall. Nowadays we tend to stay in jammies until we have company coming. I tend to stay in jammies even then unless it's not family or someone living here. I did change into jeans yesterday to play basketball with Tyler later in the afternoon, but reverted to jammies shorts as soon as we were back inside!
5. I always preferred white meat, although it was usually a little drier than I wanted (back then everyone baked the turkey). So I smothered the meat in gravy and/or cranberry sauce. I still do that today, no matter how moist the turkey is.
6. Since Mom made stuffing as well as gravy, our white meat was not nearly as dry as some people's.
7. Over the years I got pretty experimental with leftovers. Turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry, salsa, and pico soft tacos, anyone? With guac? Yum!
8. Pumpkin pie and/or pecan pie with eggs, sausage, or bacon... breakfast of champions!
9. As a kid, Thanksgiving never meant all that much to me. Then for a while it was one of my very favorite holidays. Having learned to live a thankful life, it's become less of a big deal for some reason. As it gets radically commercialized, it feels more and more like just another sad commentary on out of control USAculture.
10. I don't know if I have a favorite Thanksgiving, but contenders include:
    • The first Thanksgiving after my first[2] wedding. Sharon wanted to invite both families (17 people, and we may have had more; I don't recall) over. She cooked everything in a kitchen that with dining nook was maybe 12'x7' (barely room to open the fridge or over across from each other). The over was the smallest I have seen; think we had to take all the racks out and cut the turkey up a bit to make it fit). We had a couch and two bean bags and brought the four dining room chairs into the living room. Others sat on the floor. It was a great time.
    • My brother Bill got married Thanksgiving weekend fourteen years ago. We drove all day Thanksgiving from Austin, TX to Augusta, GA. We found a DQ open for lunch in east Texas. They had brought in everything to provide a full Thanksgiving meal, which we soooo wanted! But traveling, we weren't sure if it would make us need to stop more, so we regretfully stuck with standard DQ fare. Should have just chanced it. Drove back Sunday. Long trip, but worth it. Love you, Bill and Laura!
    • The Thanksgiving after Josiah got back from Iraq, and not just because we got to see him and his buddy Matt blowing Dr Pepper across a microfiber tablecloth.
    I think it's probably whichever one I'm living at the moment.
11. For years I thought maize had to me multi-colored, despite knowing that it's the Spanish word for the thing we call corn, just mispronounced. I still think of "mayze" as multi-colored corn and "ma-eese" as any corn. I have always loved the way "mayze" looks. The one time I tried some I was underwhelmed.
12. One year some of us dressed up to play cowboys and Indians. After we finished killing each other off (I'm pretty sure we all died many painful, often ignominious deaths) we sat down for a pretend Thanksgiving feast.
13. I always loved cranberry sauce, more appropriately known as cranberry jelly. As a kid, that was the only way I really liked it. The closer it was to having actual cranberries, the less I was interested. Now I like it all, but especially home-made cranberry sauces that are more about the berries. Sharon makes a seriously yummy blueberry cranberry sauce. In fact, as soon as I post this I am going to go eat some!

Special thanks to Kimmie Webster for making me think about the jammies with her new tradition of PJs only Thanksgivings!

Notes
[1] It's all dressing, but it's stuffing if you stuffed the turkey with it. You're welcome.
[2] First and only, and that's perfect! 8^)

Modern Thanksgiving checklist:

Modern Thanksgiving checklist:

[ ] Family
[ ] Friends
[ ] Food
[ ] chainsaw to cut swath through hordes of shoppers to get what I want

Black Friday is the anti-holiday. I hate it with a perfect hatred.

It's an abomination, whether I am looking at it from a Christian standpoint or not. It elevates greed to insane levels. If there is a god of Black Friday, it's Loki.

What's wrong with it? Beyond the obvious (making greed a virtue and people treating each other like scum to get what they want a few bucks cheaper), it's not even good for the economy. It forces merchants and manufacturers to focus too much on a single day and it forces people to work unnecessarily over the holidays.

It makes a total mockery of Thanksgiving.

Boycott Black Friday!