“Your Father Ruined The Soup!” (an other explosive Turkey Day Tales)
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
A wonderful, stumbled upon, perfectly timed tale for Turkey Day: Andy Raskin’s story from This American Life about his father’s attempt to mess with a cherished squash soup recipe, the squabble that ensues, and the familial battlelines drawn. In these eight perfect minutes, this silly little soup story encapsulates so much of the emotion, drama, insanity, and love that we feel around this time of year, a time when we put all our cards, and sometimes soup, on the dinner table (I think I need to listen to this every year, along with Alice’s Restaurant). And if talky, much-ado-about-soup storytelling doesn’t butter your roll, then maybe a video of an exploding bird will. Turn up the volume, press play, and have a happy holiday.
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I think to spoil the dogs, today, because it is the one day
in 365 that we are taught to have gratitude, but I figure
that I would just make worse beggars out of the beasts. We
fed homeless and hungry people, today. I saw one of them on
the sidewalk, cutting a pattern into cardboard the size of
his new shoes, as I left, and I wondered what good, if any,
I had really done the guy, by patting myself on the back for
weeks in advance for being such a generous kind caring fellow
for spending a part of my T Day this way. I would have to say that Hosea did know how to do it right, though, he didn’t just hook the downtrodden up with turkey, sweet potatoes, and some stuffing on Thanksgiving; he set them up with clothes and a haircut, also. Nothing in there about teaching a man to fish, that I could see, but, maybe, that comes later.
There was this kid near me, in the waiting area, named Sean, who said that he was from Birmingham, Alabama, who told me that he had been co-opted into helping out,at this event by “her,” pointing to an energetic young lady with a ceaseless smile on her face. See, there are people out there who care. Me? I think that I had wound up being there, so that a lack of gratitude did not steal the beauty of this day from me. After all, I’m not a Native American; do I really have anything to bitch about on this day, or any other day, for that matter?
Anyway, Sean had been told that he was going to work in one of
the “barbershops,” and that his job would be “toenails.” Imagine
that; getting down on your knees and clipping off the toenails of
the filthiest people in the city. It sounds like something that that
guy called Christ might have done, in between multiplying fish,
and rising from the dead. Sean had been shuck and jived, though.
As far as I know, Hosea’s army for a day will trim the hair off of the homeless, but if they, or you, even, want a manicure, you got to have some cash jack and head to
one of those Asian nail places.
Sean and his friends and family were Iranian, mostly third generation,I would guess. I told them how I had not hung around folks from Iran since 1975-1977 when I had been matriculating and imbibing heavily at FSU in Tallahassee. One of the girls told me that she went to UGA and wasn’t I her rival?
The man who we were told to report to seemed like a magical person. His smile was intense, seemingly real and genuine. He was polite and knowledgeable. I hope that he is as nice a person for real as he came across being, today. I am so tired of being let down by my high expectations: religious and political leaders take note.
I remarked to Sean and his friends and family that the average folks, in each country, like them and me, get along; that the average Iranian folks, and the average American folks have nothing against each other; it’s guys like Dick Cheney, who are heavily interested in oil, is it, that clash with the dick head leaders of Iran.
Face it folks, in the world today, the average guy and girl rock, and the “leaders,” suck, both in the good ole USA, and in Iran, and beyond. Why would anyone want to tell anyone else what to do? Why would anyone want to tell great numbers of people
what to do?
Oh, but back to the turkey…
It looked like a sold out ballgame, outside the big ball field, Turner Stadium in Atlanta, where the big event, Hosea Feed The Hungry, was going on, but it wasn’t; it was a very, very large number of down and out people waiting in line to get a meal, and maybe some clothes, and maybe a haircut and a shave.
When I pulled into one of the parking lots to ask where I was supposed to be to join the helping hands, some people said, “pull over here,” and they loaded six large pizzas, a huge bag of bagels, and two large trays of sandwiches into the back of my vehicle, and then one of them told me where to go, “Gate 1,” which had a large make-shift sign over it saying, “Volunteers Register Here.”
With the help of another volunteer, I unloaded the pizzas and all, and then parked my car, and came inside and waited until Sean, me, and his family and friends were lead through the bowels of the baseball stadium to a kitchen. I told my son,later,that this is probably where they normally boil hot dogs for ball games. Today, though the place was full of many people scurrying about with large trays full of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and a green bean yellow corn concoction.
Half of Sean’s posse and I scraped turkey, ham, green beans, and corn from foil containers, while the other half of our group then washed the containers out with soap and water. When someone came by and said, “Would anyone like another job?” I jumped at the chance. Being a Gemini, my interest in any one thing, doesn’t last for long. I was then assigned to scoop sweet potatoes into Styrofoam to go containers. This was a sweet job. It was easier on my back than the last one, and the pace was faster, so the time went by quicker. In fact, the time went by so fast, that we were soon out of sweet potatoes and I was out of a job.
I could have stayed home, alone, today and bitched about what I don’t have, and been thankful for nothing. Instead I got out of the house and out of my head. I don’t know that I really played a major difference in some poor soul’s life, today. I don’t want to pat myself on the back. After this, I went and picked up my son, and we went to an all you can eat buffet. I had the money to pay for me and my son to have a nice meal, and to leave a decent tip. I’m driving a nice car. I live in a nice house. If I’m not thankful for all that, then I’m a lame lousy useless whiner pussy piece of shit.
You have to know when you have it made;
and there are a lot of us out there who don’t.