Dear Reader,
Today I am taking
a new course with this blog. I hope to show you a different perspective. I
myself have had to live with a multitude of perspectives from the time I first
remember, and that might be at the age of about eighteen months.
At one point in
my life, I thought about writing a book, under a pseudonym. I will be brave. I
speak my truth. Some of what I say might confuse you. Some of it might comfort
you. It will educate you. It might even offend you.
This is the first
entry which will be part of a series on subjects close to my heart and from my
life. I was told in the early 1980s that I had unusual experiences. I thought
they were just normal and every day. To other students during a share-your-story-write-about-your-classmates
exercise in English class, I was told otherwise. Life has just gotten more
exciting, challenging and unusual. Some epiphanies, if you wish to call them
that, came years after the initial experiences. Some of the topics I’ll tell
you about involve family dynamics, family history, DNA, race relations, how I
came from a prejudiced family that was alto multi-ethnic, pets we used to have,
and how wars shaped my family. I’ll also discuss culture and food -- and how culture
(at least in my family) has influenced my food choices and what I cook. In
other words, this is a blog sans genre; one that I hope will be a little more focused.
Today I will tell
you the story of Thanksgiving from my childhood family’s perspective.
My mother, as you
might have read from previous entries, was born in Germany in 1930. Before World
War Two, before American soldiers, before television, Germany had no Thanksgiving
Holiday as we know it in these United States. She’d never eaten a turkey or
tasted pumpkin pie.
My father, on the
other hand, was born in North Carolina. His hill people did not celebrate
Christmas. It might have been a big deal in some larger cities, but in small
towns and counties, Christmas was still considered a pagan holiday. These
people greatly loved their savior, Jesus. They just thought it was blasphemous
to celebrate what they did not believe was His actual birthday. Many of their
ancestors had emigrated to Appalachia before our Revolutionary War and long
before Dickens penned A Christmas Carol.
According to my
late aunt, Lynn Marie, who was born in 1919, Thanksgiving was a bigger holiday
to them. They’d give thanks, exchange small gifts and (when they could afford
it) feast on turkey. My dad despised that dry old bird. I’ll admit, having
eaten my grandmother’s turkey only two times that I remember, it was tasteless
and desiccated.
Fast forward years
later. My mother brought in the Christmas traditions of her youth with a
decorated and lighted tree. My grandmother was still reluctantly embracing the
celebration, herself, and the only gift I remember getting from her was a
manicure set. I was a small child. She was a loving grandmother, but was not
comfortable with gift exchanges at that time. I’m not certain she ever was. She
accepted cards and still kept the ones sent by her sons that had deployed
overseas in two wars.
On the other
hand, my mother had never celebrated Thanksgiving, even after she married her
first husband “Tak”. He was Asian American, raised in Hawaii, and his parents had
died when he was a small child. His big sisters, barely older children
themselves, raised him. I’m guessing that a few servicemen from the “stateside”
had a feast on base or in some homes, but it was still alien in Honolulu in the
1950s to a blended-race family.
I remember
Thanksgiving was something we went to at Auntie Lynn’s house. We had turkey, countless
sides, and pie. My mother eyed the pumpkin pie with great suspicion and subsequently,
I wouldn’t touch it. There were cookies made with M&Ms for the little kids. Auntie's in-laws were also German and much older than my grandmother. Mama Kohl, who
seemed to enjoy every morsel, would feast, then fart in her chair. My cousin
Greg and I would giggle and leave the table, having barely touched our plates.
Sometimes my
parents would take me to visit their friends, Pete and Amelia Westerlund, to enjoy
Thanksgiving dinner with Amelia’s family members. This elderly couple, well
into their second marriage, were both immigrants to this country. While it is
unlikely that they embraced this new-to-them tradition, Amelia’s children,
grandchildren and great grandchildren partied like Americans in every sense of
the Turkey-day Tradition. Their Lebanese-Italian influences were seen in many
of the dishes, one of those being kibbe, both raw and cooked. What I remember more than the food was how the
men sequestered themselves off into a room to watch hours and hours of football
on a colored television, while the women talked in the kitchen and children
played in the basement.
As much fun as it was to play with Amelia's great-grandchildren
who were my age, I wanted to sneak upstairs and see the magic and miracle of COLOR
TV! Ours was a small black and white set.
Many years later, when
I was a young teen, Auntie Lynn and Uncle Raymond retired, then moved to
Arizona. Their three grown children moved to California. No more big dinners in
their home on Appoline Street in Dearborn.
Peter passed away
when I was in high school. We’d been neighbors in Dearborn Heights when I was a
toddler. As a child I thought he was the most interesting man, and I’d follow
him around the yard. We’d moved to Taylor before I started public school and my
family saw less and less of him and Amelia. So, by the time he took his journey
through the Valley of Death, we’d spent less time with people I’d considered to
be a second family. No more Thanksgivings with the Westerlunds.
Thanksgiving. Just
us. My father, my mother, myself and an adopted “uncle” named Elmer. He was an
elderly bachelor estranged from his brother. My dad would bring him home once a
week, on Tuesdays. We’d do his wash, feed him a dinner around our table, then
send him back to his house in Detroit with containers full of leftovers. At
some point, he must have asked for a good old-fashion dinner with turkey and
all the fixings. My mother made turkey and dressing. There were a few
forgettable sides. It was still Tuesday. The following Thursday was a day that
I’d watch the parades on television. One year, we found an open pizza place on Thanksgiving,
and that’s the meal we devoured. My dad gave thanks for that. He didn’t relish
eating two weeks of turkey left-overs. His words.
I myself embrace
both holidays. My turkey is moist. I’ve gotten compliments. After my mother
passed away and before my father died, he asked me to make stuffing, but “not
that boxed stuff. It has to taste like your mother made it!” Her crouton brand
hadn’t been on the market shelves in years. I’d already bought the disliked boxed
brand. What was I going to do? I used some other brand of croutons that I’d
bought, added some celery and blended in the boxes. I hid the containers under
the turkey bag in the trash can just as my dad pulled up into our driveway. I
was holding my breath as we sat down to Thanksgiving dinner 2004. My dad took a
few bites and said, “Your turkey is moist. I really like turkey now, the way
you make it.” Then with moistened eyes, he said, “This stuffing, it’s just like
your mother used to make it.”
At some point, my mother, born and raised in Germany had
mastered the art of -- stuffing! It was what my father remembered most about OUR
Thanksgivings; not holidays with the Kohls, football in color at the
house of a family member of Amelia Westerlund, and not a dry turkey when he was
growing up. It was stuffing that my mother had made into an artform, in my
opinion. I had tweaked her recipe and successfully made it my own!
I let out a huge sigh -- and I gave thanks.
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