Thanksgiving with the Rosarios

Hola mi Gente
Thanksgiving, for very personal reasons, is one of my favorite times of the year. I love ritual of breaking bread together and honoring gratitude -- giving thanks. I’ve heard it said gratitude and sadness cannot coexist and that’s been my experience.

But I love Thanksgiving most of all because all the great childhood memories. The following, believe it or not, is based on true events…

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Frankenstein’s Turkey

[Note: an animal was harmed in the making of this post]

It really was too much -- embarrassing to the beyond anything. Everybody on that 60 Wilson Bus was staring at us and the best my uncle could do was laugh that fuckin infectious, jolly laugh of his. He thought it was hilarious and, sensing my embarrassment, it made him laugh harder, causing the other passengers to stare more intently.

There it was again, a movement from the cause of my embarrassment. You see, in Puerto Rican neighborhoods, it wasn’t uncommon to purchase live poultry from el vivero -- a marketplace selling live fowl. Usually that entailed picking or asking for a particular chicken and the proprietor would take it out of its cage, go to the back, and prepare it for you.

But this was the day before Thanksgiving and my mother had insisted I accompany my uncle to the nearest vivero to buy a live turkey. At the time we were living in the then mostly African American Brooklyn neighborhood on East New York Avenue (right across the street from the back entrance of the Pitkin Theater) and the nearest vivero was a bus ride away. My uncle Onofre, Tío Nofrín as we called him, was already in his cups though it was still early in the day, and he insisted in a live turkey to take home. This was unusual, I thought at the time, because normally we would tell el vivero to prepare the bird for us. But my uncle insisted we take the fucker live, so el vivero, somewhat peeved, put the turkey in a large brown paper grocery bag, and off we went. No sooner than we sat down on the crowded bus, the turkey, perhaps sensing this wasn’t going to be a good day, began making a fuss and engaged in repeated and often violent attempts to escape the paper bag. This in turn caused all the passengers to stare, which made my already slightly inebriated uncle to laugh out loud.

He obviously thought it was hilarious, the passengers were alarmed at the tipsy Puerto Rican with a live turkey in a large brown grocery bag, and I wanted to die from embarrassment. You see, part of growing up in a society that sees ones culture as different or alien, is that there’s an internal tension between the very strong pull to assimilate (and escape the alienation) and the tug of cultural pride. I was raised to be proud of my Puerto Rican heritage, but I decided that I drew the line at live turkeys on the 60 Wilson bus.

My uncle Nofrín, already a happy-type person sober, became even happier the more he drank. And the happier he got, the more he laughed. He had this patented outburst, “Ayyyy Coo-Coo,” an idiomatic expression that didn’t mean anything except that it usually followed a punch line to a joke/ prank or when something outlandish happened. For example, if grandma fell on her butt in front of everyone, you can be sure Tio Nofrín would follow that up with a hearty, “¡Ayyyy Coo-Coo!” and start cracking up. So here I was with Tio Nofrín, wrestling with a live turkey on a crowded New York City bus laughing his ass off and yelling out, “Ayyyy CooCoo!” every time the turkey attempted to break free of the paper grocery bag. Embarrassing.

But I’ve been a little unfair to you, my dear reader, and I need to backtrack just a little at this point because I’ve started this story at the wrong juncture. This particular Thanksgiving actually began with my sister, Darlene, winning a raffle at the local Catholic Church where we took our weekly catechism classes. The prize? She won a large truckload of groceries. We were so happy! The fact was that while I can’t say we starved, there were times when we were growing up that food was scarce. I guess this is what they now call “food insecurity.” I know all about food insecurity. For example, “wish” sandwiches weren’t uncommon in the Rosario household and it was rare that we had enough capital to do food shopping for a whole week. My mother often had to scrape up dinner on a day-to-day basis. So the prospect of having a whole truckload of groceries was something my siblings and I saw, as Martha Stewart would say, “A good thing.”

My mother is a proud woman. Even as a child, I often marveled at how my mother could walk down the worst ghetto street and still manage to appear regal. To borrow the South African phrase (used in the Paul Simon song), my mother walked as if she had diamonds on the soles of her shoes. She had a way of holding herself, an attitude, so natural it didn’t offend people. People just assumed she was entitled to that regal bearing. She walked straight, with perfect posture, and her manner, though imposing, was unaffected, head held high, her perfectly sculpted nose, and those cheekbones to die for, adding a sublime beauty to that imperial pose. When she barked out an order, people listened and though she was in actuality a petite and small woman, she always seemed taller than her actual size. And while it was true we were poor, my mother would dress us in the best clothes -- clothes bought at a fraction of their original price at used clothing stores and Salvation Army centers located in upscale neighborhoods. And she taught us to walk in that same way. In fact, to slouch in front of my mother was sacrilegious.

That's why, perhaps, when my mother saw all these groceries being carted into our third-floor tenement walk-up, she became enraged thinking it was charity. She managed to insult the priest and throw the delivery boys out before we could convince her that Darlene had won all that food in a raffle.

So what did my mother do? Did she squirrel away the food, making sure we would have groceries for, like, evah? No! First, she gave away two of the (three) Butterball Turkeys to neighbors in bad straits and then proceeded to call all of the tribe for a big, family Thanksgiving dinner.

And that’s when she charged my uncle and me to “go get a turkey from el vivero.” When we finally arrived with the live turkey, a great clamor ensued. First, my mother wanted to know what had gotten into my uncle that he would be crazy enough to bring a live turkey to her house. Her instructions were clear, she enunciated in tones usually reserved for intellects hovering at the idiot level. I feared she would task us with returning the damned thing, but then my grandmother insisted that she could “prepare” the turkey. After all, my grandmother reasoned, she had been raised in small Puerto Rican town, and slaughtering and preparing food wasn’t something foreign to her.

A quick, impromptu family meeting was held in order to decide how to go about preparing the turkey and soon a full-scale heated debate broke out which culminated in my grandmother rushing out, grabbing the poor turkey by the neck, and spinning it violently above her shoulder. According to my grandmother, this was a sure-fire way of killing the turkey, a technique apparently used for generations in Salinas, the town she was born and raised.

Unfortunately for the turkey, this twisting only resulted in a wicked crook in its neck, which became immediately noticeable as soon as my grandmother let go and it started running wildly around the apartment seeking a way out of its predicament. I felt so bad I almost opened the door for it, but the turkey was doomed, and with his neck now at a right angle to its body, I doubt it would’ve been able to exploit an escape opportunity even if it recognized it. By now, half the family was in determined pursuit of our potential meal and the other, younger half was screaming traumatized. I'm sure some of my cousins still have nightmares of screaming turkeys with crooked necks. The only one who was clearly enjoying himself was Tío Nofrín who was yelling out “¡Ayyyy Coo-Coo!” as he joined in the chase for the wayward turkey.

Eventually, someone caught up to the turkey and it was then decided that the best, most merciful course of action would be to slit its throat, an action that my stepfather, Vincent promptly committed. However, all this accomplished was that the turkey, resuming its valiant quest for life, ran spraying great splotches of turkey blood everywhere. Eventually, the turkey was finally subdued and apparently murdered and a large pot of water was set to boiling in order to plunge the turkey in for the removal of its feathers. No sooner than the turkey was plunged into the boiling water that it quickly jumped out and again made one last attempt at life. This time, everyone was traumatized, screaming in horror. Finally, my grandmother, clearly upset at losing face when her fool-proof turkey killing technique was shown to be ineffective, grabbed the poor fellow, and with one last pull on its deformed neck, finished him off.

Suffice it to say the turkey no longer gave anyone trouble and before you knew it, it was de-feathered and prepared in the pavo-chon Puerto Rican style (a turkey that tastes like a lechon). Soon all the aunts, all high-strung drama queens, creative cooking geniuses, were busy preparing the dishes they were best known for (and getting on each other's last nerves in the process) and the rest of the family settled in for fun and games.

You have to understand that I come from a family of cheaters. For example, my grandmother, bless her soul, was a notorious card cheat. Mind you, she wasn’t a good or adept card cheat, in fact, she was quite bad at it. But a card cheat she was, and in our family cheating at games is actually allowed. What isn’t allowed is being caught at cheating (the sole exception to this rule being my grandmother). People who marry into our family have a difficult time understanding our ethics, but I assure you we have our moral standards, they're just somewhat nuanced and complicated.

We’re also a family comedians and pranksters and if you happen to commit a gaffe, or do something particularly embarrassing, you will forever be associated with that action/ event. For example, one friend of the family had the tenacity to stick her finger into some food an aunt was preparing and she was quickly chastised with a whack to the head with a large metal ladle. From then on she was known as La Lambia -- the greedy or starved one. I have an aunt who’s predisposed to exaggeration (actually she’s compulsive liar) and part of “family fun” was asking her questions about events we all knew she would exaggerate and then make fun of her for her exaggerations. One part of the family, my mother’s sister’s brood, were known for their bad tempers and were called the “Pissed Offs.” Another part of the clan was called the “Mini Munchkins” because they were all short.

Individuals were similarly named. For example, I was affectionately known as mal tiempo, literally translated as bad time, but is a phrase normally used to describe natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. My sister, Darlene, was called La Princesa because of her pretentious airs. Also, if you were an unfortunate victim of an accident, that too was fodder for humor. One cousin, who accidentally shot himself in the foot, was ragged on for that for years. Even something as mundane as taking a shower during family get-togethers was fraught with danger, as a cousin would invariably rush in with a Polaroid camera to snap a picture or a brother or mother would dump a pail of iced water on an unsuspecting bather.

Suffice it to say that fun and games in my family was in actuality an excuse to engage in all manner boundary trespassing, psychological torment, cheating, hysterical and inappropriate demonstrations of affection and anger, and ridiculing. And you know what? It was hilarious! As long as you weren’t the butt of the joke, of course. And every year, there would be a different theme and a different butt of the "holiday joke."

So here it was Thanksgiving Eve and the music was blaring, the home warm with all the cooking, fogging the windows, and you could smell all the great food being prepared. Family members were all engaged in the joyful activities of family holidays when the men decided they would all venture on a “Boy’s Night Out” outing, much to the expressed dissatisfaction of the women. One of my earliest lessons as a young man was that one should never anger the women on my mother’s side of the family, for they are a ferocious group of women-warriors. In any case, the men went out and they took me along with them because they wanted to school me in the ways of men. Going out, for the men, meant going somewhere where there was liquor, loose women, and illegal gambling. Apparently, being man meant being able to hold your liquor, no matter how much of it you imbibed, and demonstrating your virility by flirting with/ picking up women my mother would kill for even thinking of looking at me.

And this particular night, the night before Thanksgiving, there was a lot of gambling going on. At first, my stepfather, Vincent, was making a killing. One thing though, while sober, Vincent was a model of stability, however, once inebriated, he lost all self-control. Instead of quitting while he was ahead, he instead lost all his winnings and his paycheck to boot. This I knew was bad news, but Vincent was beyond listening to my appeals for sanity. Eventually, he convinced my uncles to lend him money and in that way help him win his money back, and he went on another winning streak, only to commit the same error, managing to lose the money loaned by my uncles.

It was 5 AM in the morning before the men began to sober up and come to the realization that they would eventually have to go back home to a group of assuredly angry women waiting for them. So they came up with the following plan: they decided it was best for me to go upstairs first in order to scope out the situation. No sooner that I walked into the apartment that I realized things were worse than even I expected. Most of the women were sitting at the kitchen table silently seething, waiting for the men to return. You could actually see the waves of anger emanating off their bodies, distorting the air like heat waves.

I went back downstairs and dutifully gave my status report and most of the men balked at going upstairs, thinking (quite wisely), discretion was the better part of valor. But Vincent, who seemed to not have sobered, guffawed, got out of the car, and with a swagger told everyone else he would show everyone who wore the pants in his home and proceeded upstairs. I followed, honestly fearing the worst.

There was this long flight of stairs that reached up to a small foyer-like area to our apartment, and it was here where my mother confronted a clearly incoherent and inebriated Vincent. Somehow she surmised he was gambling, had lost his money, and was drunk, and she became so incensed, she pushed him out of anger. Vincent, still drunk from the huge amount of rum he had imbibed, didn’t stand a chance and he went down that long flight of stairs landing in a way that no human body should land, his neck now at an angle eerily similar to the turkey’s neck the day before.

I turned to my mother, said, “You killed him.”

My mother, “I did not!”

Me, “Ma, I saw you push him. Look at him I think his neck is broken.”

My mother, “Don’t you say that! I didn’t push him, he was so drunk, he fell on his own!”

Me, “No he didn’t mom, you pushed him!”

At this point my aunt, the compulsive liar, who up until now had been asleep, appeared out of nowhere and said, “I saw everything and Lydia didn’t push him, he fell!”

Before I could continue several of her sisters and my grandmother came out and all stated, though not one of them had witnessed anything, that Vincent had fallen of his own accord and they all gave me this look that clearly indicated it was dangerous to persist in this line of reasoning.

By this time I resigned myself to the reality that the whole conversation was a moot point and went downstairs to check on Vincent. I was certain he broke his neck, but no sooner that I called his name that he opened his eyes, smiled, and managed to get up. I guess it’s true that God loves children and drunks because to this day, I don’t know how he survived that fall.

Right then, I felt rather than saw something fly over my shoulder and land with a loud crash. My mother, in her anger, had thrown the turkey, which had been slowly roasting in a low-heated oven for several hours, down the stairs and it crashed, pan and all, and broke into several large greasy chunks of turkey parts. Thanksgiving, which had begun on such a high note, had now been ruined and we didn’t even have a turkey. My mother and her sisters quickly dressed and left the house, the rest of the men probably getting similar treatment outside.

My sisters, and some of my younger cousins, immediately gathered and started an impromtu choir of wailing and crying because Thanksgiving had devolved into a dysfunctional madness and the turkey had now died -- yet again. And I was so upset with Vincent that I told him he was responsible for all the crying and for the ruination of Thanksgiving dinner.

Upon hearing this, Vincent seemed to sober up a little, pulled himself up, said, “I’ll fix this,” and began picking up the pieces of the turkey.

I was beyond shocked, said,

“How the hell are you going to fix this, Vincent, the turkey is gone!”

Vincent, “You’ll see,” he mumbled as I left to go outside for a walk, unable to take it anymore.

When I returned, Vincent and my sisters were busy trying to sew the turkey back together again and it was so funny, I had to laugh and we all started laughing. I mean, this turkey was all discombobulated, legs akimbo, stitched all together like some horror story monstrosity. And true to form, we christened the turkey, “Frankenstein’s Turkey,” and while attempting to put it together, one of my sisters chuckled and intoned, “It’s alive! It’s alive!” and we all started really laughing.

Eventually, when the rest of the family finally returned, my mother saw us all laughing, took one look at the turkey, and she started cracking up. I mean, it was impossible to look at this thing and not laugh. And that’s how we spent that Thanksgiving, eating a horribly tortured and reconstructed turkey. And believe it or not, we often reminisce about that day thankful that we have these stories to tell.

May you have much to be thankful for… Happy Holidays!

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Curse

I have written about physical punishment countless times before and I’m always horrified with the belief systems of a majority of the people I share this society with. Some people here are very creepy…

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The Curse: Patterns and Spirals
“Forgiveness is another word for letting go.”
-- Matthew Fox

Learning forgiveness, both granting it to others and accepting for ourselves, is one of the primary tools for spiritual growth. For many us, if we are honest enough with ourselves, taking a look at our history is to be plagued with deep-rooted feelings of guilt. We may develop insight, or we finally open to the possibility of being accountable for some of this history, which opens us to a new perspective on life. As human beings, we may also yearn to undo our mistakes. However, many of us carry guilt for years as if we deserved to continue to be punished.

True growth means letting go.

My experience has shown me that it is not until we learn forgiveness that we can stop the patterns that have been handed down from generation to generation. I'll give you an example from my own personal history. I was blessed with two beautiful, intelligent, caring, and courageous parents. The fact that I’m living the way I am today is a testament to their legacy of courage and determination against sometimes great odds. I am very grateful for what they have given me. I honestly believe that if I were to carry my mother on my back for the rest of her life, I still would not be able to repay what she has given me.

However, both of my parents were abused as children. For example, it was a common practice to make children kneel on uncooked rice, or to be hit with a switch until they bled. That’s considered a form of abuse today, thankfully. My father was orphaned by the age of seven, having lost both his parents to disease and was subsequently raised by an older sister who was barely older than him.

I was raised in a home where the specter of violence was always just a moment away until my mother was able to escape that hell. I had seen too much violence before I was even five years old and It took me a long time to even begin to understand all any of it. I loved my parents dearly, as I know they loved me, but there was a lot of abuse and feelings of horror and abandonment in my childhood. I simultaneously adored -- worshipped -- and hated and feared my father, who could be loving and angry to the extreme. My mother, also a sweet and loving person, was quick with her hands, often smacking me in the face, eliciting within me feelings of hatred, which I then felt guilty for harboring.

People today are always amazed at my ability to size people up. I’m often right on point with my ability to analyze people, even if I choose to look at the better side of human nature. I’m no fool -- don't let the suit, tie, and smile fool you. LOL But the fact is that I first learned how to read people as a child. I had to for my own survival because I had to know if the most important person in my life was going to hug or hit me. So I learned to read the body, listen for tones in the voice, check the eyes. I had to become good at this.

Growing up and listening to my mother’s screams or being subjected to physical punishment myself, I would promise myself that I would never re-enact these abuses to others. At those times, I hated my parents and felt guilt about that hate because they were my parents and I was taught that it was wrong for me to feel what I felt.

Years passed and I found myself the primary caregiver to my own son seven years of age. Imagine having me as a father! LOL!!! Whatever! I like to thin that my son and I had a great relationship. I can be very entertaining, to say the least. I think early on my son had a huge crush on me and adored me and I tried my best to develop a relationship based on unconditional love and honesty. I guess only my son can adequately answer whether I was successful or not.

One day, he came home with a report card that I felt wasn’t reflective of his abilities. My son was a gifted child but, as with many brilliant children, he lived in his own world, the “real” world sometimes being very boring. I was the same way. As a child, my mother would send me to the store and I would disappear for hours, causing a family hunt and more often than not, I would be found sitting somewhere daydreaming, or staring at the intricate patterns cracks made on the sidewalk or cloud formations. Anyway, that day I was feeling a little drained and I was feeling very frustrated because here I am, I'm thinking, busting my butt, stressing the importance of education to this kid and he’s not getting it!

So the more I’m talking to him, the angrier I get, and the angrier I get, the more boundaries I trespass. Eventually, as I feed on my frustration and anger, I’m cursing at him, raising my voice, and talking to him in a way I never did before. Heck, in my mind, I want to take him over my knee and spank the shit out of the little fucker.

All the while, there’s a part of me that’s “watching” all of this -- a kind of inner witness -- but my body is in “fight or flight” mode, and I can't stop myself. By now, my son is crying and the more he cries the more frustrated I become and somewhere I know I'm losing control, that I’m going somewhere deep and dark and my son is terrified...

But all I want to do is kick this kid’s butt!

Just then, my son -- voice quavering and his body trembling -- my son pleads to me, “But Pops I don't understand, what do you want me to do? Please, tell me... ”

And my heart just melts right then and there because I look at my son’s face and see the tears welling in those beautiful blue eyes and at that moment I'm overwhelmed with love for my son. At that precise moment, I saw reflected in my son’s eyes, my own inner child and was vividly reminded of the horrors and trauma of my own childhood. It was as if his plea awakened me from an unconscious or deep-rooted rage and I became terrified myself.

Feeling as if I have awakened from a bad dream, all the fears, all the rage dissipates. I take my son in my arms and hold him tight, repeating over and over, “I’m so sorry... ”

You see? This is how patterns are repeated. I often say we're probably playing to scripts that were written generations ago.

That moment served as an awakening or epiphany for me because I realized that I had to find resolution with my own demons. If I didn’t, they would get passed down to my son and those that I love the most. Before I could be the father I wanted to be, I had to forgive my own parents, and let that rage go because that abuse was so powerful a force that it threatened everything that was important in my life.

I had to let go.

Fortunately, I was able to do that -- at least to a certain extent. I was also able to speak to my son about my own fears and how sometimes when he didn't do well in school, my fear was that he would eventually suffer as I did. It was an irrational fear, but that’s where my head went in those moments when I became most angry or fearful. I believe my son is a good man today, having gone to college and attempting to fulfill his dreams as a musician. I know now that I never had to hit my son for him to respect me, though sometimes I convinced myself that I had to. I am certain that he respected me, not because I terrified him, or beat him, but because he internalized the value of trust. One day, my brother called me from Florida where my son was staying for a couple of weeks during summer vacation. It was late, about 1 AM on a Friday and I asked if everything was okay. My brother told me that he was at a Blockbuster video rental with my son and that he had offered my son the chance to pick out a porn flick. He told my son that it would be their secret and that I didn’t have to know (grrrrrr… ). My son’s response was, “I can’t do that because my father and I respect each other and that would be wrong.”

You see, it wasn’t fear that stopped my son, but respect and love. Eventually, I learned that my anger stemmed from a deep-rooted fear – probably the fear I experienced as a child in an violent home and community.

Did I become the “model” father after that day? No!!! LOL!!! But that day I began to try understand to importance of forgiveness and the practice of letting go because letting go is not just something you do, it's something you become.

Forgiveness is not saying that what you or someone else did is OK. Rather, forgiveness is a state of being in which you allow yourself to get rid of the fear and rage through a long and slow, but necessary process. The price you pay for not letting go is pain, not just for yourself, but for those closest to you.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…