"A Thanksgiving Memory"

Every Thanksgiving morning as a young boy in Brooklyn, I would dress up as a hobo and go begging. No, we weren’t poor…

The children would dress in raggedy clothing and blacken their faces with a burnt piece of cork to resemble bums or hobos and we went from house to house yelling, "Anything f' Thanksgiv'n?" In return, and if they were lucky, they would be rewarded with coins, a piece of fruit, or a piece of candy. In the Brooklyn neighborhoods, this custom appears to go back to the 1920's and 1930's and perhaps earlier. It was often called "Ragamuffin Day" and was something akin to ‘trick or treating’ on Halloween.

Starting at nine in the morning, in black face, old clothes and my father’s castaway fedora, I made my way around the block  “begging” from door to door, "Anything f' Thanksgiv'n?"  My brilliant strategy targeted the neighbors who gave out candy or coins and not silly, old fruit. In those days we got full sized candy bars that cost a nickel apiece not like today's small bite sized handouts. Before getting home, laden down with a big shopping bag full of “trick-or-treat” goodies, I would eat a Snicker, a Milky Way and a Three Musketeer bar so I didn’t have to listen to my mother yell at me to save room for Thanksgiving dinner. “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach” was a phrase she loved to use. After my gorging, I ran to the bathroom to flush down the candy wrappers, stripped out of my tatteralls and took a "whore’s bath" wiping the burnt charcoal and chocolate from my hands before facing my mother for a hygienic inspection..

At noon we were going Bay Ridge to visit my grandmother and the Polish side of the family for Thanksgiving dinner. I quickly put on my "Easter suit", snapped on a satin silk tie and secured it in place with a faux gold tie clip. The Napoli’s walked down our brownstone stoop all dressed up, looking like the family from “Leave it to Beaver” – my brother Michael holding my hand and my baby sister in my mother’s arms.

We got into Dad’s car and took the Gowanus Expressway to the Belt Parkway to the Fort Hamilton Parkway Exit. Before they built the Verrazano Bridge there was an actual decaying dark brick Fort out in the Narrows built for an impending British attack in 1812 which never happened. Off of Fourth Avenue, a huge black cannon with very large cannon balls still stood silent watch over the harbor. A left at St. Patrick’s Church took us to grandma’s house at 345 96th Street.

Fort Hamilton

My grandmother and my uncles lived on a quiet street lined with London Plane trees. These are the kind of trees that dropped big puffy seed balls and whose bark you could peel off in sheets by hand. A wide red enamel slippery stoop led up to the front door of a two family attached dwelling. The door to the right was Mr. Russo’s, the Italian landlord who lived downstairs. Grandma did not get along with the Russo’s and they were to be avoided at all costs. I rang the door bell on the left labeled, KROTKI and my Uncle Joey came down and let us in. Even from all the way downstairs, a huge wafting miasma of roasted turkey swept over us and high up to the wintery sunlit skylight. A steep set of narrow stairs got you to the top vestibule where there was always a small aluminum trash can. A swinging door led directly ahead into the kitchen while on the right, a French door with lace curtains opened up into the dining room. Since this was a holiday, we got to use the French doors.

Grandma's House

Everyone was already there: my Aunt Laura and her Italian husband, Uncle Cy, a Frank Sinatra looking Lothario who was already drunk; my bachelor Uncles Eddie and Joey who lived at home with my grandmother; my divorced heavy set but baby-faced Uncle Larry still crying over the desertion of his wife to Florida, taking their son with her; and my burly Uncle Phil, the oldest, also bereft of an estranged wife and child and already down Nightmare Alley. Whiskey and Rye was drink of choice washed down with good old Brooklyn Rheingold Beer.

My deeply religious grandmother wore a gray and pink floral housedress she had bought at Mays Department Store in Downtown Brooklyn on Fulton Street. She always wore her hair in a tightly coiled bun held together with big black hairpins looking like Irene Dunne in “I Remember Mama.” Like the savory cabbages glumkies she always made, she ran sweet and sour; dispensing coins in my hand when I pleased her and a sharp rap if I said something she didn’t approve. She went to Mass every morning and a large Infant of Prague Statue in a glass case loomed on her bedroom dresser. She changed the Baby Jesus' attire to match the liturgical calendar.

I put the light green tied-with-twine boxes of Ebinger’s pumpkin and mince pies that my Mom had bought on the huge buffet in the dining room. Baby Karen was deposited on Grandma’s double bed in a nest of winter coats looking like a little Bon-Ami chick on the half shell. Michael tore around the apartment playing airplanes till my Grandmother gave him a whack which provoked lots of crocodile tears. It was perfectly accepted for a relative to discipline a child. “A child should be seen and not heard” hissed my Aunt Laura.

I went directly to my Uncle’s Joeys’ new Hi-Fi that I was enthralled and obsessed with. I put two LP’s on the changer, Jackie Gleason’s “Music for Lovers Only” followed by Lester Lanin’s album, “At the Tiffany Ball.” After awhile, my mother yelled out to shut “that shit” off since dinner was ready. I made it louder for a second before I shut it off.

Aunt Laura, Uncle Cy, Uncle Joey, Mom. Grandma, Uncle Ed

At 2pm, we all sat down in the formal dining room which was only used for major holidays. The table was set with a white damask linen tablecloth with an ecru crotchet lace overlay. The best china and crystal had appeared out of the heavy dark wood China closet. The silverware sparkled having been taken out of a mahogany box lined in lush hunter green felt that looked like Alexander Hamilton’s case for his dueling pistols. I never remember wine being served unless it was a Mogan David and we weren't even Jewish at all. The White Mountain Bread left powdery blotches all over my suit that I tried to wipe off with water which made more of a mess – like dirty sleet after a city snow storm.

When it was time to say Grace, my father yelled out “Grace Kelly!” and we all laughed. Thanksgiving was the only time we said Grace and my eldest uncle Phil began as we all joined in:  “Bless us O Lord for these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ Our Lord. Amen.” First was Duck Blood Soup that my Grandma had prepared days before. I think it was the Catholic Polish version of Jewish Chicken Soup but being much darker and thicker almost nut brown with great chunks of carrots and celery congealed to the Carolina Rice. You had to lick the spoon after the initial slurp, to savor the savory reduction, coating the unusually large soup spoons.

My Aunt Laura and Mom with military precision cleared the soup plates. Uncle Joey brought in the behemoth sized Turkey to the ‘oohs and ahs’ of all. He walked it around the table twice showing it off like a rabbi with the Torah. With great pomp it was laid before Uncle Larry who took out a gigantic ivory handled knife and pronged fork. As he had been an army chef in Hawaii during WWII he carved the 20 pounder Butterball with expertise and brio.

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Me with Grandma, Uncle Larry and Uncle Phil

Out flowed the bowls and platters, - a bounty of side dishes with vegetables and legumes all from my Uncle’s fruit & vegetable store in Sunset Park: a mountain of steaming mashed potatoes (it was my traditional job to mash them and I always bruised the palm of my hand in exuberance) - a tray of cold cranberry jelly mold (Aunt Laura had cut her hand while opening one end of the can, then puncturing a hole in the other end and blowing out the quivering shape) - a piling of steaming homemade stuffing made out of especially bought day old dry bread. – tangy parsnips and rutabagas, roasted sweet potatoes, boiled-to-death string beans with almond slivers, gray-green Brussel sprouts and earthy buttons of mushroom caps dripping in butter. We passed around a precariously filled-to-the-brim boat of turkey gravy which we slathered over everything spreading out over the entire plate like an Appalachian Spring mud slide. We filled goblets with ice cold Key Food Apple Cider poured from a gallon jug with a little glass handle that I always got my thumb stuck into.

All this was devoured in almost silence in less than half an hour. There was a collective groan of satiety as Uncle Larry pronounced (as he did every year) "It's the moistest turkey Mama you ever made." Uncle Joey went to the Hi-Fi and put on a record of Art Mooney and his Band. The needle plunked down on “I’m looking over a four leaf clover” and we all sang along: “that I over looked before. One leaf is sunshine; the second is rain, third is the roses that grow in the lane. No need explaining, the one remaining is somebody I adore. I'm looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before.”

When the song was over, Uncles Ed and Phil got up in tandem and put on their jackets to go to the neighborhood Irish Bar & Grill to pick up some other Thanksgiving birdies. Uncle Larry kissed Grandma on the cheek saying “Night Ma” as he left in sweet sadness. My father went to the parlor, opened the top button of his pants, stuck his hand under his belt, laid his head back and fell asleep on the couch in front of the Philco TV.

With all the men gone or asleep, the cleaning-up was left to women and children: my mother, Aunt Laura, Uncle Joey and me.  Art Mooney and his Orchestra continued on with “If I knew you were coming Id’ve baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake.” As we scraped and washed the dishes Uncle Joey and I would sing out the refrain: “Howdya do, Howdya do, Howdya do?" Michael sat on the kitchen floor getting in all our way coloring in his Mickey Mouse book till Aunt Laura gave him a good kick that whirled  him into Uncle Eddie's bedroom. Grandma didn't help out since she did all the cooking, She went to the brightly lit front sun room which was all windows hung out with Irish Lace curtains and filled with jade and "mother-in-law tongue" plants.. She sat in her rocking chair and prayed the rosary, murmuring like a Tibetan monk; eyes closed looking up in a Bernini pose of St. Teresa ecstasy - "Hail Mary of grace, the Lord is with thee..."

Aunt Laura removed the crochet overlay from the Dining Room table. The patterns left behind now looked like a tapestry camouflage mottled with brown gravy stains, blood red cranberry bullet wounds, crumbs of war and gangrenous vegetable smears. A smaller art deco cloth was laid over it all, hiding the skirmish. Uncle Joey put the trash out in that ever present garbage can on the other side of the kitchen swinging door.

The whistling of the teapot signaled dessert was ready. Dessert was a ladies delicacy served only with A&P Tea, never coffee. Those of us veterans, who were left, circled the pies, nuts and a large cornucopia display of fruit. Everybody had a piece of each pie topped with a dollop of freshly made whip cream. Grandma used Carnation Evaporated Milk in her tea, a vestige of the Great Depression and war rationing. She would pour the hot, hot tea from her cup onto the saucer as she blew across the top to cool it down before sipping. No one ever ate the fruit while I made a mess cracking open the walnut shells. Grandma opened up her bottle of favorite liqueur, Cherry Heering Brandy. She gave me sip from a rose colored cordial glass. I puckered my face up since it tasted like Smith Brothers cherry cough syrup.

The piercing cry of baby sister Karen from the bedroom waking up to be fed startled us all out of our tryptophan drugged state. Her cry was like the factory whistle signaling it was time to go. Grandma never gave us any leftovers. They were always kept for the return of her prodigal sons later that night. There were polite hugs all around but nary a kiss from my colder Polish border side of the family. We all slept on the way home as Dad somehow stayed awake and got us back to 10th Street. There was parking on the right side of the street right in front our place so my father wouldn't have to get up early the next morning and move the car.

Uncle Joey

Later that night in my pajamas, I watched for the first time on CBS “The Wizard of Oz” in glorious black and white. It wasn’t till my Uncle Joey took me the following month to the Sander’s Movie Theatre off of Park Circle on Prospect Park that I realized that when Dorothy opened the door when she was dropped in Oz that the rest of the film was ablaze in lollipop candy, eye-popping Technicolor.

I identified with Dorothy longing to be “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” But like the movie running backwards, I was living in the neon lit OZ of New York City. Little did I know that I was soon to be dropped down in Newburgh the following year in 1958, opening the door however onto the drab gray dull florescent existence of suburbia. After our move upstate, visiting either of my grandmothers for Sunday or Holiday dinners would become a thing of the past. There would be no more movies with Uncle Joey or going door-to-door on Ragamuffin Day. There would be no more singing around the Hi-F - real four-leaf clovers now in our backyard that I would hate to mow.

Dorothy went back to Kansas after clicking her heels three times. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." New York City was my home. Why would Dorothy ever want to leave Oz and go back to the sepia drabness of the farm? In anxiety I bit my nails and I tasted some chocolatety burnt cork under my fingernail left over from the morning and my not thorough washing up. I grabbed an O’Henry bar from my day’s big stash that i had hid under my bed. "Anything f' Thanksgiv'n?"