An American Tradition?

by Susan Donahue
(Half Moon Bay, CA)

The calls would usually begin a few days before Thanksgiving. I?d hear my Mother on the phone, ?Uh huh, uh huh, oh yes, well sure, please bring them along, we?ve got plenty.?

I was the youngest of nine children. By the time I was 6, the oldest had started getting married or moving out to live on their own. I have fuzzy memories of the whole family plus our grandmother living together in the four-bedroom house on Jefferson Street.

One thing I knew for certain, Thanksgiving Day was unpredictable. You never knew for sure who was going to be there until they walked in the door. My Mother let us know that if someone didn't have a place to go for Thanksgiving, they were welcome here.

One year, we had a few players from the Taiwanese Table Tennis team. They didn't speak much English but seemed to have a swell time. Another Thanksgiving we had a lady from Greece whose husband was recuperating at the University Hospital. My sister, Nurse Connie had invited her to join us. The Greek lady spoke absolutely no English and we seemed to do just fine. Oh yes, that was the year the turkey was dropped on the kitchen floor. The Greek lady seemed to think it was some kind of weird American tradition.

I watched the events unfold with the eyes of a six year-old anthropologist. My Mother, a great fan of Julia Child, shut the kitchen door as Dad picked up the bird. Then, she began cleaning it off. Oh, everything is fine. Dinner will be out in just a few minutes, she called to the guests that had started settling into their chairs at the dining room table.

I thought the whole thing was great fun and I even wrote a short story to submit to Reader's Digest. When my brother Bob saw the story, he tore it up. From my vantage point, it looked like Bob had dropped the turkey platter. Oh well, I guess I wouldn't be getting the ten dollars. Looking back, I'm not sure that Reader's Digest would have accepted a submission in pencil from a six year-old.