Things We Didn’t Know

When we get the family together — kids, grandkids, cousins and significant others — my sister and I often learn things we didn’t know.  

This week we had an early Thanksgiving in Indiana, by virtue of the fact that I was visiting from California, and some of us would be in Florida in late November.  Plus, we never miss a chance to eat potatoes.

Before we sat down, we gathered in the living room of the house shared by my sister and brother-in-law and our parents, and my Dad said the blessing.  He started his Thank-you-gram with gratitude for my mother, his wife of 63 years, his two daughters, their children and THEIR children.  It was a supremely poignant moment and there was a lot of snuffling before he was through.  That moment alone was worth the indignities of going through security at SFO.

The menu included the traditional Midwest fare: A turkey that had been allowed neither free range nor organic feed; green beans simmered in a Crockpot with barbecue sauce; and Cracker Barrel Hash Brown Casserole, which contains the monthly recommended amount of fat grams in the form of butter, sour cream and cheese.  It was Hoosier Cuisine at its best.

Of course, there were two tables,  In a twist on tradition, the littlest ones were at the adult table (the one with the tablecloth) and some adults were at the kids’ table, eating off placemats.

After dinner, while the dishwasher wooshed in the kitchen, we sat by the fireplace and listened to the “kids”–all in their 30s–swap stories of growing up on the family compound, a piece of Indiana farmland purchased by my grandfather in the 1930s. My sister and I lived within shouting distance of each other and our parents for ten years of our children’s lives.

It was enlightening, that post-turkey conversation.  We learned that my niece Mary, whose usurpation of the title “Aunt Mary” has elevated me to the status of GREAT Aunt Mary, was a little dictator to her younger brother and cousins.  She made them play school, complete with homework, and was known to mete out punishment liberally.  Her brother Nathan pronounced her “mean.”  Her cousin, my son Tom, allowed that she was “bossy.”  All my sister and I knew at the time was that she kept the boys in line and taught them to read.  We didn’t care how. 

In her own defense, Mary confided that her older brother Matthew was mean to HER, and she was only passing it along.  Tom, the youngest of the clan, took the brunt of it, and the bumps on his head tell the tale of shovels dropped on it from trees, rocks thrown from behind bushes, and sharp sticks made from dried corn stalks poked at his noggin.

Most of the abuse took place at my sister’s house, which sat on ten acres of woods and afforded many opportunities for mischief.  The only injury she knew about was the shovel incident, which she conspired to cover up by buying Tom’s silence with a homemade brownie.  The rest of it happened without our knowledge.  

A psychologist might find it significant that the kids’ fondest memories involve maiming and mayhem. Our children turned out to be an auto technician, a systems administrator, an engineering software wizard, and a college professor–there is not a serial killer among them.  I like to think it was more than just dumb luck. Maybe it was growing up surrounded by three generations of their family, all of whom have a sense of humor.