Milford: The Turkey Treatise

Part 1- setting the table

According to Blood, Sweat & Tears…

What goes up must come down Spinning Wheel got to go ‘round

What is the connection between philosophy, cheesecake, musical theater, and bathhouse?  If you guessed Greek inventions, you could go reward yourself with a slice of Hawaiian pizza, yet another Greek born offering _{(Greek born Sam Panopoulos is given credit for inventing it 12 years after his emigration to Western Ontario)}. Modernity owes a lot to its Greek foundation.  A significant achievement that is commonplace today, was the cultivation of excess time.  Society was afforded freedom from the time/energy monopoly of hunting, gathering, and building shelters.  Many had leisure enough for arts, science, mathematics, sports, politics, and astronomy.    And that doom scrolling you’re missing your bedtime for, is originally made possible by those who used their leisure to advance and document the sciences. But this is not a guilt trip to be more productive with your moments spent apart from survival chores. The virtues of advancement take many forms. Playing games is a viable option to your Friday evening or Sunday afternoon.

You may be familiar with the athletic games that were born in ancient Greece.  They were so important that all fighting was to cease, and safe passage granted to participants and attendees before, during, and after the events, which still occur every 4 years. Since the Olympics began, organized sports of all variety have elevated to incredible heights.  And athletes everywhere can participate in the primary ideology that was deemed even more important than the games themselves.  Early philosophers discovered that there was so much more to athletic excellence than just an opportunity for a profitable sports book.  In a nutshell: Life is the art of dying well through the pursuit of excellence and virtue.  Virtue, they believed, could not be taught by itself, it must be experienced and developed through activity.  It was this cultivation of Virtues, that the successful competitor developed in training, and displayed under pressure of competition, _{(whether in victory or defeat),} that was enriching. 

The establishment of rules and the unwritten code of conduct was just as true in ancient Olympia as it is in the modern-day pub, where leisure games still flourish.    These parameters manufacture skill, strategy, and a corresponding attitude of sportsmanship. A delightful difference is that a drunken crowd could watch Olympians in one instance, but the drinking crowd is the competitors in the other. 

· · ·

My sister looks at me quizzically, no grumpily, from the rearview, my head’s silhouette surely eclipsing Boston’s disappearing skyline as we travel North up route 1.

“Welcome back, good to hear you’re still muddling the idea that virtue can spring from vices.” She says in a flat sarcasm” I’m sure everyone waiting at the house will be eager for the validations.” At this, she can’t maintain a straight candor, and bubbles up to an audible giggle at her joke, her eyes flashing playfully in the mirror.

“Ha, Good one.  Is everyone there already?  I thought auntie Kr….Oh, pull into this Dunkin’s! Medium regulah’s on me”

According to the new devil’s dictionary…

holiday (n.): A ritual sacrifice in which the youngest member of the family is delivered to the tech support gods.

Family is filled with people who you love and who accept you, sometimes related by blood, but never to be confused with relatives. Universally speaking, we tend to share our holidays with both.  Woven into the fabric of such grand traditions as warm lights, good food, gift giving, and tender embraces, is the hushed trepidation of dealing with a whole diversly opinionated family.  Once you find yourself completely surrounded by extended family, you are probably at Turkey day; the foremast of “the holiday season”. 

 Many holidays caravan around the calendar.  There’s a dice rolls’ chance of trick-or-treating on a Wednesday night, or watching fireworks late on a Monday.  But not Thanksgiving.  It is tethered to the last Thursday of November, and therefore, it always creates a long weekend.  It’s the perfect time for a hometown expat to make a pilgrimage to see the fam.  While it is mostly worth it to return home each year, these predictable, reoccurring gatherings can also involve much tongue biting.  Longstanding familiarity may be good to know that “a little” honey in the tea is still a lot, or a “splash” of whiskey actually calls for a heavy hand, but, if your family is anything like mine, inevitable conflicts will populate the group like fruit flies on last weeks compost.  In fact, the whole season is an ambivalent affair.  Baked right alongside the rye yin of laughter, smiles, cheer, and decoration…is the pumpernickel yang of dysfunction, drama, and unease. Who will drink too much white wine and become belligerent AUNTIE PAM? How long will Aunt Sandy bemoan how much she hates work?  Will Barney’s joke at Ribbitts’ expense go nuclear again?  Will that naughty cat I’m allergic too rub against my leg?  What “helpful medical advice” will be imparted to me while I’m trying to watch Home Alone?  These are merely some base line possibilities grabbed off the top of the bag, forget about election years, dog help us. 

 We are not able to escape death, but we can die well, and so it is, if we can’t escape drama, how can we still have a lovely visit?  The diagnosis is in!  Stagnation is the trauma causing puddle.  And there is a remedy:  keep the schedule flowing like fresh, running water coursing down a rocky mountainside.

· · ·

“Why is everything in Auntie Pams house chickens?”  my sister Barney says with an eyeroll that is not looking for a response.  But I always jump to keep her eyes rolling.  “Roosters actually. and it’s disgusting.”  I say turning my head aside for a moment. “Might as well be printed aprons and copper tins embossed with mandingo”

“Wha? I don’t get it?” Ribbitt says with slacked jaw.

“Cause they are cocks RIBBITTS” cousin Jill yells as she slaps the counter, gently sloshing a rum and coke she safely holds in the other hand. And now she has caught the eye roll fever, towards her sister. “Mandingo is like the Rickroll cock of NSFW gags”

“No, no, no” I interject.  “It’s not that, it’s something else. Have you ever stopped to think about this?  How slutty must hens be to be laying eggs constantly?  That doesn’t just happen by accident my eager, young, biologist cadets.  If the hen house is rocking, don’t come a knocking…So then logically, there must also be some stud roosters.  They’re out there. Busy as porn stars, and cousin dingus’ mother here likes to keep them proudly surrounding her kitchen.”

“Watch it pal” says dingus, gravitating closer with an eye for a headlock.

According to Wiktionary…

-palooza (suffix): 

1. forms the name of a promotional event. 

2. Emphasizes or exaggerates the element of a situation.

Let’s add:

 3. The collective noun of allied friends and family escaping family functions, surely with the aid of fortified beverage. 

Thanksgiving was always a sleepover affair at my Uncles house, air mattresses, couches, and shared beds from basement up to the second floor packing everyone in like a fridge bursting with holiday leftovers.  As soon as our generation was old enough, we began peeling out of the thanksgiving household to reclaim a night in the festivities for ourselves. What better way to escape a rote tradition, than to start your own fresh tradition?  We call it Cousinpalooza, and it happens every year now, smack in the start of the holiday season.  One of the staple observances of New England, is going out drinking the night before Thanksgiving.  In fact, it’s the macro version of the weekly tradition of youth: jumpstarting the weekend on Thursday night (and struggle through Friday if we must)!  Those who have spent any time in Boston, know Thursday nights are lively, and if you are a local (or invited to stick around during the holidays), the same principle applies to the last Wednesday of each November.  Everyone has the next day off and are back in town visiting their folks.  There is no excuse not to catch up with the old crew.  Drive by any club in the greater Boston area the night before Thanksgiving and prepare to see lines of eager patrons braving the cold in sequined mini dress’ and high heels to pay a cover and get to boozin’.  Seize the day ya lush! 

 The main public announcement is to not be so hungover the next day as to ruin the best meal of the year.  A grave mistake one only makes once (which perpetually haunts this author as his life’s only major regret).  An easy workaround we’ve evolved to, is moving Cousinpalooza to Friday or Saturday night, then you have the added bonus of coming home to premade leftover plates, and pumpkin pie for breakfast.  

· · ·

“Yo, is everyone ready to go? Who’s DDing tonight? Love you Ma, Aunt Ruth, byyye! see you guys in the morning, I’m putting the cheese ball in the grill on the porch with the ham, if you’re looking for it cause there’s no more room in the fridge…”

According to Urban Dictionary…

Milford:

A collection or gathering of attractive young to middle-aged mothers who guys want to bone.

    The PTA meeting was referred to as a Milford.

As the years move our family’s households around, our traditions pack up and go with.  Here we were, a palooza of cousins, coming from all over to meet in Milford.  Like the Simpsons’ Springfield, there are many towns of Milford in the US, but our destination is the snowy New Hampshire one; a charming colonial, Americana town.  Most of the world’s population would only see something similar in a screensaver featuring New England autumns or maybe in a Norman Rockwell illustration. The town center has a convenient pedestrian area with a large gazebo at the northern point that has been pressed in, so that the grassy “Milford oval” is squeezed like a water balloon by a triangular vice of pavement.  In Milford, there are not so many places to go out, but like any good nor’easter town the day before Thanksgiving, they are all open and popping.  Crossing the hub is the quickest way to navigate destinations on foot, which becomes essential in the biting night air.  The one exception, Cousin Dingus, is unaffected by the temperature.  The big man opting for his standard ¾ length pant shorts with black tee and unzipped Bruins jacket, in a bizarre departure from every other warm-blooded mammals wardrobe choice.  Pretty sure he’s got a “whiskey jacket” flasked up in his back pocket.  I was first introduced to the warming properties of a well-timed whiskey pull by my New England landscaper boss who had us doing “fall cleanups” well into the winter, after light snowfalls and when it gets dark real early. ie. Raking frozen leaves with numb hands and runny noses, by the illumination of the dump truck’s high beams.  Not wanting to lose the work order, he passed the bottle around the crew more than once to “warm up from the inside”. Yeah, it got the job done.  This was my wide-eyed Greek boss, wide in size, but also in location that softened his predacious work ethic.  He did teach the pursuit of excellence throughout my tenure with him, yard work being a capable training grounds.  I recall his lawnmowers afforded me plenty of time to contemplate and exercise virtue, or was it just stoner thoughts? I confess that I don’t see a difference when you’re living in the moment engaged.  

Stay tuned next week for the exciting conclusion of the Turkey Treatise! where there is sure to be more philosophical inquiry to be considered.  And we will actually catch up with a couzinpalooza in the wild terrain of Milford.  See you then!  

Ready for part 2 now? click here