Thursday, November 28, 2013

"Hi, I'm Rick, this is my brother Rick, and my brother Duane, and my other brother Duane, and my brother Bill, and my other brother Bill...." (Funny Anecdotal Thanksgiving Story Part 2)

Some Thoughts On Thanksgiving Traditions:

I'll start with a comment that I just left on MSN...:
Well, let's see... When I was a kid, my Mom & Grandma used to spend the day before Thanksgiving preparing everything, then the turkey would be left out to thaw at around midnight, and Grandma would be the first one up, making home made noodles, and biscuits, and of course a pot of coffee. They would work as a team, making the stuffing, stuffing the bird, peeling taters, etc. and everything that had to cook would be slow-cooking on a low heat so they could sit in front of the boob tube and watch the parades with the giant balloons of Bullwinkle and Snoopy. My Dad, Uncle, brothers, and me, (and cousins if they were there) would hang out in the basement and watch cartoons and then football. Usually Pitt & Penn State was the big game, since my oldest brother went to Penn State. There would be beer, my Uncle drank copious amounts of beer, and my Dad drank whiskey, and there was always an opportunity for a kid to sneak some beer. Then around late afternoon the women would call us upstairs to eat, everyone would eat like hogs, then we would move to the living room to lay around like walruses, (walri?) and belch and fart, complain that we ate too much, watch more football, or some movie like 'It's A wonderful Life' and then one by one people would go to the kitchen for seconds. When I was a teenager I would always be out with my buddies, smoking reefer, drinking beer, and playing football in the cold wet mud. Then I would go home in time to eat. After I had my own apartment, I would still go home to Mom's to eat turkey, sometimes with the girlfriend of the moment in tow, and then the evening would be time to get drunk. After Mom sold the house, things were different. One year I got a frozen turkey-loaf thing and a frozen lasagna, and a keg of beer, and had a thanksgiving dinner for all my misfit friends. After I had my own house, which was basically party-central 24/7/365, one of my drunk buddies would cook a bird... (cont.) >>>

That was all they would let me post, I guess they have a character limit. (Them fucks!) so here's the rest of the story:   My buddy Duane, after his wife and him split, he came to live at my house, which was fine by me, because he paid rent, and he always bought beer, and I had a good-sized house with space to rent out to several buddies. Story continues. >  Duane would cook a turkey, he had a natural talent for that. He would stuff it, baste it with beer, make giblet gravy, all that good shit. I would make smashed taters, and sweet taters, and a sweet tater pie. My other buddies who lived in the house would all make something to contribute. My buddy Dave would always bring a half gallon of Black Velvet. I, of course, would have my trusty Jim Beam, and a keg of beer, and everyone would have weed. We didn't bother setting a table, everyone would just plop down wherever and eat. After we ate, we would go out and find a Christmas tree and bring it back and set it up. We all had to find the weirdest, most un-traditional thing we could think of to hang on the tree. We would compile a list of each thing and who hung it, and then ask other people that came over if they could find it all. Sometimes we would play Turkey Bowl in the morning, depending on how much booze and drugs were consumed the night before. This went on for several years, until I got married, so I reckon it qualifies as a tradition. After I got married, I moved out of the house to live with my wife, and left Duane in charge of the house. He continued the Turkey tradition for the five years that I was married. My wife and I would always make it a point to stop over there in the evening and eat some food with the crew, hang something weird on the tree, etc. so the tradition continued, even though I wasn't living there. After I got divorced, I moved back home to party-central, and the tradition continued unabated, but over the years it deteriorated, what with everyone's increased intake of booze and dope, and the ever-changing influx and efflux of people. Also, the addition of children changed the dynamic of it as well. Someone has to have their wits about them enough to keep a hairy eyeball on everyone's kids. People were doing harder drugs by that point too, and who wants their younguns to accidentally stumble upon Uncle so-and-so passed out on the couch with a spike sticking out of his arm? Or to accidentally walk in on an inappropriate blow job? "Oops! Wrong room! ...Hi Debbie."  Uhhhhh... Yeah. ..So anyway...

Duane had a stroke in 2001, and his family stuck him in a nursing home at the tender age of 38. The last Thanksgiving in that house was 2002. I went to jail in July of 2003, and I was incarcerated for that Thanksgiving. I got out in the spring of 2004 and got clean and sober that July, almost a year to the day of getting busted. Four days short of it, in fact. The next five Thanksgivings I spent at the AA club, volunteering in the kitchen, cooking dinner for a bunch of other alcoholics. The next one I spent volunteering at a homeless shelter on the east side of San Francisco bay, doing basically the same thing. Then I returned to the east coast, spent a couple years here at the local club, helping out, and the last few years hanging out with my sober family, eating at a buffet joint, I think last year we cooked a bird here, I think...   There doesn't seem to be any real tradition anymore, maybe because I'm older, whatever. It's a good day to watch football, and I'll probably talk to my daughter on webcam at some point.

When they eventually legalize recreational marijuana nationwide, maybe I will start a new tradition of smoking a Thanksgiving joint. Maybe. It's better for you than booze, or dope, or cigarettes.
Well, that's all I've got, for now. Everybody go eat a turkey.
Namaste.

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