- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 0
-
Sparkle (0)
In eleven hours, my mother will be scrambling around the kitchen, checking the turkey, mashing the potatoes and refusing all offers of help from everyone. "Go sit down," she'll say. "Have a drink! It's Thanksgiving!"
My father will lock himself in the basement with my brothers, my husband and my uncles, never to be seen until the Green Bay Packers kick the tar out of the Detroit Lions. Not a moment of this football game can be missed! The consequences for speaking while the Almighty Brett Favre is working his offensive magic are not to be taken lightly.
My sister and I will adorn the dining table with Mom's best holiday tablecloth. The vibrant hues of red, orange, gold and brown coordinate with the beautiful autumn centerpiece at the center of the table, the one we put out every year; and the cornucopia will make it's home on the antique hutch my mother inherited when Grandma Alice passed away.
This holiday will be nothing like the traditional celebrations I remember from my childhood. We would gather at Great Aunt Hannah's house each year because she always cooked the biggest bird, her refrigerator never ran out of Point beer, and she had the longest dining table, suitable for many rounds of pinochle and poker, as well as feasting on turkey with the trimmings.
While Aunt Hannah and Grandma were commandeering the kitchen and fretting over the turkey, the men of the house were seated at the table playing pinochle and arguing about politics and religion. One would think that family feuds were plenty given the topic of conversation, but surprisingly everyone was amicable. Fighting only occurred if Uncle Eddie swept away the pot after a game of Seven-card stud, or if cousin Shawn had too many whiskey-sours and belted out the chorus to every Abba song she knew.
I can still hear their voices, husky from smoking cigars and Marlboro Reds, discussing President Ronald Reagan and the failing 1980s economy, President Richard Nixon and Watergate, and of course, the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
I couldn't have been more than five years old, but oh, how I remember! My father's powerful voice filled the room as he spoke of the alleged conspiracy hatched by Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald Ford. The theories thrown across the table were endless, and thinking about it today reminds me of "the telephone game". The story changed with each passing around the Thanksgiving table.
But Grandma Alice spoke of JFK so brilliantly. She reminisced about the day the first Catholic president was elected into office. She loved President Kennedy as if he were akin to her. She often referred to him as her president and felt that no one had more charm and charisma, or more power, than JFK. Her gray eyes lit up with pride as she exclaimed, "If anyone can, Kennedy can!" She said the words as though she was hearing that slogan for the first time.
Soon Grandma's eyes reflected sadness and grief as she relived the feelings of terror while listening to Walter Cronkite's newscast. "Three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas." She remembered that she was watching one of her programs, the soap opera "As the World Turns", as she heard the fateful words. She remembered feeling sick to her stomach, sobbing for hours, and praying the rosary.
Those same beautiful gray eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered, as she recalled Jacqueline Kennedy's later appearance on television, her clothing stained with her husband's blood, as she walked slowly to a car to be taken away from Parkland Hospital.
Tom Shine of the ABC blog Politics As Usual recollects that moment in history as well. He writes:
"It was 1963 and the Notre Dame football team was having a season identical to this year's -- 2 wins and tons of defeats. I was studying to be a priest and history class had just started in the Tin building that housed the high school. Suddenly an out-of-breath upperclassman burst through the door and shouted "Kennedy has been shot!" My first reaction was, what did he say? Soon the class was dismissed and we all headed to the rec room where there was 1 Black and White TV and a bunch of chairs. CBS's Walter Cronkite was reading
