Thanksgiving Weekend

This Thanksgiving, I went down to the seashore with my parents. I always enjoy the "winter beach" and the lack of crowds during the off-season. We left just before a Nor'easter storm left 4 or 5 inches of snow in my neighborhood and I only saw only some cold wet rain as the snow was gone by the time I returned home.

I did some overdue maintenance work on a garden shed, Superstorm Sandy had blown off some roof shingles and I set about cleaning out the shed and mending the roof. After getting the shed in order, I went down to the beach to listen to the surf. I took a half dozen photos, and I like how the seagull in the foreground might look like he made some footprints.

About a month ago, I was rooting through some old boxes with stuff my Grandfather left behind, and in with the "debris" of a long life (i.e., "trash") I found a family heirloom.

A silver plated carving set. I was immediately transported back 40-45 years in time to a Thanksgiving Dinner at my grandparents, parents, brothers, and my Uncle Jim, Aunt Mary, and their son Paddy. My grandmother had spent the day setting the big table in her dinning room, and now we all sat down to give thanks and to eat a feast fit for kings. My Uncle Jim, in his booming voice filled with laughter, saying, "Well, Harry! Bring on the bird!!"

My grandfather would then bring the huge (usually a 25 pound plus) turkey from the kitchen through the swinging door to the end of the long table. He would then make a few swipes of the carving knife on the sharpener (it really didn't need it, as my grandfather had fully sharpened it an hour or two beforehand) and set about carving white meat for those that wanted white meat and dark meat for those that wanted dark meat, and always gave me and my younger brother a drumstick apiece too.

This Thanksgiving, my parents and I ate a much smaller turkey carved with the carving set my great-grandfather first used in the 1920's. You might notice someone got a drumstick.

We talked about the many delicious meals we shared with my Uncle Jim, Aunt Mary and Paddy, and how much we always enjoyed being with them. It was hard to believe it has been over 30 years now since we last ate with him.

And as fate would have it, hungry for something warm after a cold day spent outside, we ran short of mashed potatoes, which reminded us of the time my grandmother spent hours peeling and boiling potatoes and mashed them by hand only to find the heaping bowl full only went 2/3ds of the way around the table! She was visibly mortified - and no amount of telling her, "there was more than ample food to make up for it," would make her less embarrassed. Through the hub-bub, my cousin Paddy* pipes up, "Boy these mashed potatoes sure are good!" It turns out that he had innocently taken half the bowl, so Aunt Mary rescued some of them and we all had some mashed potatoes after all!

*Cousin Paddy, James J. Dunn the III had Down's Syndrome and was a big, gruff, but wonderfully big-hearted soul. He spent many hours setting up his huge HO train set and tracks so that his cousins (my brothers and I) would be able to play with them when we came to visit him.