Thanksgiving Traditions

Like a lot of kids, I’m sure, I thought the best time of year was absolutely Halloween to New Years, a view has accompanied me into adulthood.  I couldn’t get enough of the turning leaves, spooky ghosts, spiderwebs, pumpkins, cornucopias, turkeys, Christmas trees, lights, carols, snow. I was obsessed with snow, but in the south, where I grew up, it rarely came. A  flurry or two was usually all we got. But, I’ll save the Christmas tales for later, as it is still Autumn. 

Halloweens at my house begun at the beginning of October, with my mother and I going to the fabric store to look at patterns and figure out what I wanted to be. I tried to alternate between scary and pretty each year and Mom always constructed beautiful costumes for me.  She made me a Snow White, A witch, a fairy princess. The only store bought costume I ever remembered having was a skeleton. One of those body suits. My brother’s costumes were not usually made, as he wanted to be a ninja turtle, or a cowboy, or a ninja. The witch was the costume that turned out to be handiest and used more than once for several different purposes. My mother had sewed a jack-o-lantern at the bottom of the dress, for extra spookiness, which I adored, but when I wanted to become Amelia Bedelia, I had to wear a long apron to cover it up.  

During this time of year, school art projects were of course at a high. We drew pumpkins and haunted houses, made hanging ghosts, and then at Thanksgiving did the ever dutiful turkey by tracing our hands.  

In third grade, we watched a cartoon about the first Thanksgiving. It included Miles Standish as a character, and a lovely women who wore pink, even though the other pilgrims were dressed staunchly in black.  Miles, who wore blue, loved this woman in pink. They talked about how much they were in love as they sailed on the Mayflower. What would this new world bring?  It brought them to Plymouth Rock of course and into the presence of the Natives, who they did not understand. It wasn’t long before we saw a freezing winter and a kind Squanto, helping the pilgrims to food.  I always believed that there was indeed a huge sharing that occurred on one very special day and that it was set down then and there in the calendars of all pilgrims and Indians to be called Thanksgiving.  

My favorite Thanksgiving tradition began shortly after seeing this film.  The class was asked to dress as either a pilgrim or an Indian, depending on what thought might be more fun and what might be easier for our parents to come by. At the time, of course, I had no idea the political incorrectness that can come with being a seven year old dressing as an Indian (or the political incorrectness of Thanksgiving itself. I’ve learned since that it was much more likely a meal like this took place with the Spaniards and the Natives, but who’s counting? Can we prove any of this, really?). I decided to go as an Indian and my mother and I made a headdress out of construction paper, cut a brown tee shirt to make a fringe effect, and looked at a book so find some Native looking designs. We made beads for me to wear by painting macaroni, and I wore tights and moccasins. Then, I had a thought. Why keep this dress-up limited to school? Why not dress up for Thanksgiving dinner at home? I would go as a pilgrim on Thursday when we went to Grandma and Popo’s house. I made buckles out of yellow construction paper and taped them to my patent leather shoes. My built a bonnet for me out of white paper.  I asked her to remove the pumpkin from the dress this time. Simply covering it with an apron wouldn’t do. She did. I spent that Thanksgiving “acting” like a pilgrim as well, talking like they’d talked in the Mayflower cartoon. I wanted my brother to be an Indian, so we could share, but he didn’t want to dress up.  And so for the next few years, I would alternate costumes, eating my Thanksgiving feasts as either a pilgrim or an Indian, not at all questioning how the first Thanksgiving had happened. Maybe the history of it was skewed, but I was interested. 

I think now, when most people think of Thanksgiving, we don’t so much remember the pilgrims or Indians, but rather do focus on what we are thankful for. I am thankful that my family has always allowed me to be whatever I want to be!

A Girl Who Kicked A Hornet's Nest

One weekend our parents took my brother and I to our school playground to play. Our bikes were loaded into the station wagon so we could ride around if we wanted to.  We slid, we swung, we played on the monkey bars, and ate honeysuckle from the bushes.  Then we got on our bikes and rode around the grayish, late summer grass that hadn’t seen enough rain.  Then I saw something in front of me on the ground that looked exactly like a rotten cabbage. What was a cabbage doing at the school playground? I pointed it out to my brother and I rode our bikes straight over it. 

“Get out of there! Go, Go!” My dad’s voice rang out. “Drop your bikes, move, move!”  What? Why? “That’s a hornet’s nest.” Hornet’s nest? I didn’t remember ever hearing of hornets before, but somehow it came crashing down that they were insects, like bees, and they stung.  My brother, who’d dropped his bike first and ran to the curb was now hollering. He’d been stung all over. I seemed to have gotten out unscathed, but as I looked back over my shoulder, our abandoned bikes laying on top of “cabbage,” I saw them swarming. And then I felt them, the stings. I too had been stung numerous times. It didn’t hurt as much as you’d think, really, a lot less than bee stings in my mind.  Instead of getting our bikes right away, we piled into the station wagon and drove home to make sure we were okay. We didn’t worry about the bikes, we couldn’t. Someone would come back to them later. We only lived minutes away from the school, so before long mom was administering soothing cream for the stings. Then my dad announced that he was going back for the bikes. Darkness washed over us. Dad was allergic to bee stings. Did this mean he was allergic to hornets too? He was.  But he assured us he was going to bring his EpiPen, which was a shot he’d give himself if he got stung. I shuddered. How could anyone administer a shot to himself? That sounded horrifying. He’d shown us the box with the medicine and the shot once before. I couldn’t believe it. My dad was so brave!  Worry consumed me as we sat in front of the T.V. nursing our stings, waiting for Dad to come home with the bikes. I actually worried that maybe he wouldn’t make it home. What if he was stung over and over and even the shot didn’t help. I kept my mouth shut and didn’t voice this concern to my brother. I’d put him through enough already, just because I wanted to investigate a “rotten cabbage.”  When finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes or so, my dad returned, I ran to hug him. I’d never been so happy to see him!  He hadn’t gotten stung, most of the hornets were gone, or dead, seeing as we’d destroyed their nest. So he hadn’t gotten stung and he hadn’t needed to use the shot. What a relief!   This was certainly one of the silliest things I’ve ever done. Curiosity killed the cat, I know...but then cats do seem to have nine lives. 

Turtle Power

If you watched a lot of cartoons in the 90’s like me, then you were likely in love with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My love for these four “heros in a half-shell” bordered on infatuation, teetering strongly towards it.  My brother’s best friend exclaimed “you have the coolest sister ever!” because I often wanted to play turtle action figures with them.  I made turtle masks out of  paper plates and played with toy nunchucks. I played the video games, spouted the theme song at top voice, and hollered “Turtle Power” to anyone who would listen.  One thing I did not have was my very own Ninja Turtles t-shirt. My brother had one, several in fact. I longed to borrow one, but he wore them so often that this was nearly impossible. 

One day, I decided I was going to make my own t-shirt. I borrowed several Ninja Turtle trading cards (which were postcard size rather than baseball card size), and I taped them to my shirt. Not one, not two, but many. Most featured Michelangelo, my absolutely favorite turtle. I thought I looked amazing. My mother thought I looked likely to get picked-on, but she didn’t try to stop me. She kept her mouth shut and drove me to school.  Nobody made fun of me. I’m sure some of the girls probably sniggered, but I didn’t feel out of place. And as we lined up to go down the hall to art class, my best friend (a boy) commented that it was just like watching T.V. on my back!  I thought that was awesome!  Nevertheless, when I got home, my mother had decided to take me to the mall to buy my very on turtle tee so I wouldn’t have to repeat this card-taping.  Of course, it was the 90’s so the shirt I picked happened to be neon.

My other fashion habit was wearing all one color, also neons. I had neon blue, neon green, neon orange, neon pink, neon yellow. And I only wore skin-tight clothes, mostly bike shorts and t-shirts, and of course stirrup pants and paint-splatter jeans...but the jeans weren’t part of my one color obsession. The one color obsession came from playing Rainbow Brite, which is something I did all the time. Rainbow Brite wore all the colors of the rainbow, but her friends each had their special color. I played Shy Violet, Buddy Blue, Indigo, and Red Butler by donning a different color each day. Sometimes I could convince a friend to join me and we’d run around the park fighting off Murky and Lurky as Patty O’Green and Lala Orange. 

Lucy the Duck

When my brother and I were little, he was obsessed with animals.  I liked animals as much as the next kid, but not as much as Eric.  He lived for animals.  I, on the other hand was obsessed with hollywood, movies, actors, and anything famous. So, naturally, when our grandparents decided to take us to a zoo that housed many famous animals (like the horse from Pippi Longstocking), we were both in hog heaven.  I’m not sure if they had any hogs there, but if they did, they’d be famous ones.  The zoo was called...wait for it...Hollywild Animal Park and it was located in a part of town that we’d never go to otherwise. It was one of those places you forget the way to when riding in the car, but you always recall what it looks like as you drive up.  What happened the first time we went to Hollywild, I’ll never forget, either.  

Inside the zoo they have these gumball machines full of animal feed. You pop your quarter in and out comes a handful of little x-shapes treats that are safe to feed to all the animals. Well, not all the animals, you wouldn’t want to try feeding it to a tiger. Well, my brother and I begged for change so we could feed some famous animals and of course Popo and Grandma were happy to oblige. The first animal we fed was a duck, who was wondering around with the human visitors. I thought it was cute and really charming.  She (we decided it was a she) pecked some treats from our hands and quacked in delight and we were satisfied.  As we made our way through the part, to look at that famous horse from Pippi Longstocking, we heard a quacking behind us.  Sure enough, the little duck had followed us. Probably for the food, we were sure, so we begged another quarter off our elders and gave her more of the nameless x-shaped treats. She gobbled those up happily as well, and we went on our merry way.  Well, so did the duck. We stopped to observe the panther, she stopped to observe the panther. We admired the flamingoes...she admired the flamingos.  I decided to name her Lucy, so that’s what we called her as we meandered through the park with a duck at our heels.  I grew attached to her quickly.  She was adorable!  And I felt like she chose me! Of all the kids in the park, she was following this kid! And she really was following us. We couldn’t deny it or chock it up to a coincidence. Everywhere we went...so did Lucy, quacking contentedly.  I began to pay more attention to her than the famous animals. I fell in love with this duck!  I only had eyes for her. She was now my pet for the day, and though I knew we’d have to leave eventually, she was mine. Maybe I could convince the zoo and my grandparents to let me take Lucy home.  Why not?  

Now, the real highlight of a trip to Hollywild Animal Park, was the safari ride.  In the sticky South Carolina heat, as many passengers as could fit- young, old, big, small- piled into busses that’d had the windows replaced with thin metal bars in the center, so you could poke you head out and get a good look at all the wildlife.  This safari came at an extra cost, of course, but you wouldn’t go to Hollywild without going on the safari.  My Grandparents got us tickets and we were ecstatic.  It was the last thing we planned to see for the day.  As we waited for our bus to roll up, we knew it was time to part with Lucy. We had to prepare to say our goodbyes and so we did.  We fed her some more X-shaped treats and told her how much she meant to us. We thanked her for following us and being our special ducky friend. Then about fifty camp kids in matching shirts and khaki shorts herded into the nearby picnic shelter, brown bags in hand. Lunchtime!  Lucy became confused. Instead of listening to me tell her how much I loved her, she was hopping over to quack at the campers.  They were noisy and rowdy, laughing hysterically at each others’ jokes and chomping into their peanut-butter jellies, drinking they Ecto Coolers in the pure happiness that comes only with the summer. 

“Lucy, Lucy!” I called frantically. Now I was the one following her! Chased was more like it. I was desperate. Curse these camp kids for stealing my duck away! Why was she more interested in them? Sure, they had a variety of food that was bound to be tastier than the X-shaped treats, but we had a relationship! We’d visited the zoo together, seen all the other animals together, talked about our favorites! My brother gave up before I did.  My grandmother nearly had to pry me from Lucy’s side to get me on our safari bus on time.  I was half-sobbing, throwing a tantrum. Now I’d never see Lucy again and we weren’t even having a proper goodbye!  We climbed onto the smelly bus and got prime seats near the windows. A tour guide handed out crackers that looked like matzoh crackers and told us they were for the ostriches.  We oohed and aahed as we rolled past the lion and the apes. We rounded a hill and then they came...a flock of ostriches, who resembled the velociraptors in Jurassic Park to a tee with their movements.  We threw bits of cracker out the window for them, but they came right up to the bus, the whole flock...and they poked their beaks in the window nearly clipping off our fingers! It was the most terrifying and wonderful experience. Coming down from our ostrich high, the obviously theatrical ending to the safari, we sat back in our seats as the bus made its way back to drop us off.  As we drove by a wooden fence, a lone duck stood quaking and flapping its wings. Her wings! For I was sure it was her, Lucy, and she’d waited for us to go on the safari. I wanted to tell her to follow the bus! She wasn’t close to the exit! When we got off the bus, she was nowhere to be seen and I felt a twang of guilt. The camp kids had distracted her, but she didn’t love them! We’d boarded the bus and then she didn’t know where we were. She’d gone looking for us and that was why she was standing near the end of the safari ride. But I also felt proud and happy to know that she’d come looking. We meant as much to her as she meant to us!  When it was time to go, I didn’t leave feeling sad. I was a little disappointed that Lucy and I hadn’t gotten our proper goodbye, but in the end, we didn’t really need one for our friendship to mean something. 

http://www.hollywild.com/

Why this title?

Hello there world (or the very limited few of you who are reading),

This blog will include tales and observations from my childhood and will be primarily about ME, so the title Nostalgia & Narcissism just seems fitting. It won't be snarky, or actually narcissistic (I am rather self-deprecating), but it will be true and should hopefully be entertaining and humorous.  I have a lot of quirks to cover.