Thanksgiving Jello

Mom would get up extra early, say five a.m., in order to get the turkey in the oven to be ready by one in the afternoon.  This was to allay whatever assbackwards nonsense my father decided to come up with, and get him full of food so that he would pass out, I now wonder if he looked forward to holidays as particularly spectacular opportunities to display to God and the hapless family his pantheon of righteous, vicious explosions.   A warrior against the wrongs of the world, of which he was king.

Today, here, it is now the beginning of the afternoon; by this time everyone would have been put through hell, the kids crying, Mom with tears while mashing potatoes.  Plates flying.  Food thrown against the wall.  "You people," he would call us, as if we just emerged from the fields and rang the bell.

My brother was three and wanted to help, the "special dessert" Mom would make was so simple but we kids would ask for it.  Orange Jello with chopped walnuts. That's all.  Mom was no baker and had trouble juggling turkey, potatoes, the frozen square of Bird's Eye squash, biscuits from a cardboard tube, and stuffing as it was.  She was the kind of person who would be assembling aircraft engines during WWII, and later tell me she had no idea what the hell she was doing. Planes by Dorothy, you can only hope things held together.

She had gotten the water boiling, found the yellow Tupperware bowl, measured it out and added the orange powder, the smell layering on top of the turkey and steam from the potatoes.  It meant we were coming into home stretch and dinner would be ready soon, for me to eat on the living room floor, while my little brother ate at the table, he was too small to be relegated to spread newspapers. Mom gave him the job of stirring the Jello, he stood on a stool to reach the counter, and in walked the Voice of the Lord.

"YOU'RE MAKING HIM A WOMAN!  THAT'S WOMAN'S WORK, NO SON OF MINE...etc., etc., etc.

"He's only stirring Jello," which was as much as my Mom ever answered him.  My brother became scared, the spoon clattered to the floor, the mix in the bowl still spun in circles, and my Mom was holding the pot of potatoes that needed mashing.  Yelling, yelling, frantic crisis yelling, he was enjoying the rush of adrenalin, the cowering, the uproar.  He grabbed my brother, who had tears but was too scared to cry, to take him into the living room; even then both us kids knew that placating Dad would get us through another day, playing along with the game.

I think Dad sat him in front of the television, a manly thing, apparently. Football.
Continued yelling ensued, "THAT'S HER JOB, SHE'S THE ONE THAT HELPS YOU, SHE'S A WOMAN."  Yup, an eight-year-old woman.  Mom and I tiptoed around the kitchen, trying to be silent.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU, MAKE SOME NOISE, YOU'RE ACTING SCARED TO MAKE ME MAD."   Please, please, please pass out. Please get in a car accident.  Please leave and not come back.  Leave my mother alone, leave John alone, leave me alone alone alone.  Don't kiss me at night. Don't tell me it's how fathers love their daughters or that it's in the Bible.  Please let this day be over.

When ready, he angry-ate, gulping masses of food and yelling about us kids watching him.  How could we not?  It was as if a starving dog was presented with a plate of chicken, I was happy to get out to the living room floor and hunch over my dinner.  Mom still had to play-act, my brother did his three year old best to appease and soothe, and I, well, I kept to myself.  If I could have hired Hopalong Cassidy to come shoot him, I would have, and then figured out a way to keep us out of the poor house.  I would work as hard as I had to, in my child brain, to save her.

Storybooks had Aladdin, Cinderella, Swiss Family Robinson, Huck Finn, all heroes who landed in good circumstances despite adversity.  Hansel and Gretel came home with jewels to a father who had abandoned them at the urging of a horrid stepmother, at which I wondered, but hey.  Was the woodcutter a good man?  Was he just another victim of a leeching parasitical woman, the motive of all women?  Live off a man's sweat for a life of soap operas and living out in the sticks where there were no sewers, garbage pick ups, deliveries, and you could hear farm dogs howl at night?  I had hope that I was strong enough to pull us through, after finding at a ridiculously young age that I was pretty much on my own.

But that didn't happen.  I was told I wasn't smart enough to go to college, (You're a woman), in spite of a scholarship, or that I tested out of the 8th grade to attend college courses for the sum of $60 for books.  Marriage and having babies was foretold for me, and the lack of gumption or belief in myself kept that mindset. College money was saved for my brother who contracted serious mono, had a nervous breakdown after high school, and was given an allowance to keep him home till he was in his 30s.  I got out, but had no clue as to who, what, or where.

But I guess I'm all right, and am thankful for most of the events in this life; that my son has always found good people to be with and has a loving marriage; that I stayed on the Dean's List my years in college, that I recently have found I want to be loved and be loving, never wanted to bother with that for years; that I have discovered one of my places to be as a teacher, and that friends are there.

I think that art is freeing, and I need to get back to mine.  Visit foreign countries.  Go to a new restaurant.  Sit in a cemetery and get chased by wild turkeys.  Be involved with the city. You know, fun stuff that broadens one's outlook.

Today is the coldest day of this fall season this year, and folks are bundled as I see them from my window.  The cats are curled into various shapes of side dishes, mashed, squashed, and creamed.  I look forward to this Thanksgiving at my son Brian's in-laws, the wonderful family he married into.  After, perhaps the crescent moon will hang, as it did the other evening.

Razor-thin illumination, floating in the sky, a Hunter's Horn bright against pallid night.  Be warm, take care of yourself first, it's what leads to your being there for others, for protecting those you love.  Sleep well, drift with the moon as it sets by nine tonight, a waxing crescent in the western sky, visible just after sunset.  Oh heart, oh mind, be with my soul.  Good night.