It’s all about the early edition this week as I am headed to New Jersey in about seven hours and hope not to even lay eyes on a computer until late Sunday when my eyes might flicker across my own huddled powerless in the corner of the room.
Before we commence with the happiness however, I thought I’d take a minute to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has always been my absolute favorite holiday. It’s the only holiday that the whole family – at least the Jersey side – gets together for. Since I’m a big fan of family and get all gooey inside from being tossed about in a sea of affectionate people naturally this one would be my fave. So, as I head off for my vacation let me send my best to you and yours. Hope everyone has as much fun as I do.
Now, without further ado, on to the date-appropriate list:
13. AT-AT – One of my few vivid memories of a specific Christmas. It must have been 1980 since the release of The Empire Strikes Back would have been the reason I so desperately wanted an AT-AT. Naturally I got one for Christmas – I always got everything I asked for – and not 10 minutes after it was out of the box and assembled my little brother – he would have been only two at the time – smacked it into the big chest of drawers in the dining room and broke off one of the cheek guns. Bugger.
12. Spider-Man Robot – Halloween when I was very young, maybe even the late 70s. All I wanted to be for trick or treat was Spider-Man but since my Mom had some sort of mental block against buying those way-cool plastic jumpsuit costumes with the cheesy masks we had to make something at home. Impossible to make a proper Spider-Man costume so I ended up wearing a blue sweatsuit under a large box painted to look like Spider-Man’s costume. Mom said I was a Spider-Man robot. I’ve never forgotten it. Nor forgiven it.
11. Looking for Ancestors – Apparently Mom made a deal with my real great-grandmother – we knew her as Aunt Mary – that she’d try to visit her grave every year, I think around Thanksgiving. One year we decided to do a grand tour and also try to find some of the old folks over in West Philly. We went to the Catholic graveyard where they were supposed to be planted and asked for Maguire. The lady looked at us cross-eyed so we tried to whittle down the possibilities. “How about Pat Maguire?,” we said. Oh, that’ll narrow it down to only several hundred possibilities. As it turned out they must have all died as the Depression was gaining steam so there was a marked family plot but no stones. We did get to see another Aunt buried sort of next to her husband, she inside the consecrated ground, he outside. Never did manage to find Aunt Mary’s plot though.
10. Christmas 1996 – My brother was in England and Mom and Dad decided to go to Indiana to spend what proved to be my grandmother’s last Christmas with Dad’s family. For whatever strange reason I chose to stay behind, by myself. I fortified myself with a couple bottles of good whiskey and Cherry 7-Up and settled in for the duration. Christmas night, I think I was tinkering with an old computer and settling in to a really serious drunk when I heard a clanking sound coming from the A/C. I looked around and then thought to look out the window. Down in the parking lot was my pal Lou flinging stones at the window. Turns out he was on the way to another friend’s house for Christmas dinner and thought he’d bring me along. So, I got a good Christmas dinner with a family after all.
9. Christmas Eve – Growing up in my family meant no Christmas decorations prior to Christmas Eve. I know we always bought the tree ahead of time but we weren’t allowed to hang one ball until the actual night. All the Christmas Eves of the past run together but they always involved waiting anxiously for Grammy and Grandpop to arrive from NJ so we could start decorating the tree. Then trying to finish up and get to midnight mass and then trying vainly to sleep. Christmas Eve was always a really long night. In more recent experience is the memory of driving over to Red Lion for Jed and Tootsie’s Christmas Eve party, then booking back for Midnight Mass and finally ending up in Mercersburg for the big day. Good times.
8. Midnight Mass – I love Midnight Mass. I don’t know why, I’m not a terribly big fan of church but Easter Vigil and Midnight Mass are faves. The year I was alone for Christmas I went to every Mass I could, Christmas Eve, Midnight, Mass at Dawn, High Mass at mid-morning, etc. As a kid though, I remember being terrified of Midnight Mass because Santa came at midnight and if you weren’t in bed asleep you wouldn’t get anything for Christmas. Oh, the horror!
7. New Year’s Eve 1999 – A bit of a jumble but better than 1998 when I drank Guinness and gin and passed out in a young lady’s lap. Limey and I had a pint or two in the Pub to celebrate the new millenium and toasted the Queen, the King and Teddy Roosevelt. Then we went out into the Diamond, hung around with a couple of friends, got a spectacular picture made and drank whiskey while the fireworks exploded overhead. Best memory of the whole night? Limey wearing a flak vest because, as he said, “If the world goes to hell tonight I’ll at least have body armor on.”
6. Valentine’s Day 1997 – I hate Valentine’s Day with an unreasoning passion. I hope I’ll always hate it. But, it happened to coincide with my first visit to England in 1997 so at least I could cover the annoyance with a trip to the pub and many pints of good English beer. What a trip, four days in total out to the country to visit my brother at school. Very tired, very cold but a good time anyway.
5. St. Patrick’s Day in NYC – The first year we went up to do the parade St. Pat’s was actually on a Saturday. Roadtripping up, boozing around, riding the subway with a couple hundred other armed men in wool, forming ranks to the drum in the marble hallways of Grand Central Station, bumming around 47th St in the freezing cold, getting flashed by a chick at Connolly’s who then brought us beer after they threw her out of the bar, marching up 5th Avenue, getting blessed by the Cardinal in front of St. Pat’s cathedral, saluting the statue of Sherman near the Plaza Hotel, getting cheered by a bunch of drunken Russians at their consulate all waving Guinnesses, &c. What a hoot.
4. Golf – Another Thanksgiving tradition, on Black Friday the girls go shopping, the menfolk go golfing. Had a lot of good trips. Chad and I riding the golf cart, determined not to stop to pick up a ball. Uncle Pete shooting one into the drink and then solomnly looking at his club before tossing it down the fairway. An excellent chip I made, clean up and onto the green and right smack into the cup in one.
3. Thanksgiving Day Parade – We’ve been going intermittently to the Philly Thanksgiving Day Parade since the days when it was sponsored by Gimbels and ended with Santa climbing up a fireladder into the store to start the season off right. In the early days we used to ride the high-speed line into town which, for a kid from the country, was pretty much the coolest thing in the world. Now we set up near Logan Circle and watch the show come down from the Art Museum. There’s little better than an early morning in Philly, surrounded by family and eating hot pretzels as the parade goes by.
2. My 21st Birthday – Well, it ought to be a holiday! The whole affair caught me entirely by surprise. I had to go home to help with picking a Christmas tree but was anxious to get back to college and hang with my friends and celebrate the day. Just as we rolled back into the driveway with the tree the Jersey folks started to roll in. By the end of the day my entire family – all 20 or so of them – and all my college friends were settled into the house with copious amounts of beer and good grub. One of the best-days-ever.
1. Thanksgiving – If you hadn’t figured it out already, this is the big one. Although I’ve already mentioned many of the things that make this day so important to me it’s just such a big deal it deserved its own entry. From making the grub in the morning to the turkey sammiches on Friday. From the golfing trip to the inevitable Sam’s trip. From the advance celebrations of my birthday when I was younger to the current celebrations for all the other kids with relevant birthdays. I’ve had many friends join my family for the holiday over the years which only added to the merriment. Hell, one year we even had a snowball fight on Thanksgiving Day. Best-holiday-ever!