Give Thanks.........Or Not

Sorry I've been largely absent on this here blog for a while. Maybe that will be my upcoming New Years resolution. Can you believe we have to start thinking of that shit already??????

I bet you all were "Giving Thanks" this year that I've been quieter than usual..... Well, just because I haven't posted my opinions of late doesn't mean I don't have them...........so here goes........

Starting off with my ol' friend the Pope. He says that condom use is ok in certain circumstances, such as male prostitutes because basically they are having sex with other men so you aren't stopping conception anyway. THIS is exactly why people think Catholics are crazy.

Papa, Papa, Papa (as the little nuns were screaming at St. Peter's while they were trying to knock us over to get a first row view of the Pope) Do you really think you are going to be a deciding factor in anything a male prostitute does?

I can picture it now. Some strung out junkie, just turning tricks to get more heroin, says to the john, "Oh no, we can't use a condom. It's against my religion."

Really Papa, I don't think your opinions are that important in a male prostitute's life. They should be, but they aren't.....

Next up, the old standby, politics. I know, I know, quit groaning. I'll never shut up......

So after the Republicans won control of the house, the President invites them all over to the White House to discuss the future of the country. They ALL declined. All of them?????? You mean not one of them could make it?????? They ALL had scheduling conflicts??????? And they are getting paid to govern?????? They haven't done a damn thing is two years. Wish I had that job.

If the President calls you, you come. Period. Cancel the meetings. He's the boss. When they are the boss (God forbid!) they can command the same respect.

I think he's just too good for them. As the article goes on to say, they had a televised meeting last year. The President stood at a podium. They sat in the audience and had to raise their hand (gasp) and the President would answer their questions. Obama effectively answered their questions. They later stated that the President used that session to embarrass them and command the room. As well he should have............

How about this TSA whole body search fuss? Seriously folks, if they want to scan me, go right ahead. I guarantee you, it's going to be harder on whoever has to see my naked ass than on me walking through a scanner for 10 seconds. And to the Mensa's who are telling people to "say no." Wow, you can stand in line for four hours instead of the customary two during the busiest travel weekend of the year. Wow, that will show them. Them, being people who are scanning who have to be there anyway and are getting paid to be there..........

Which brings us to this week being Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite holidays. Although since my mom passed away, its bittersweet.

We all go our separate ways now, but when I was growing up, Thanksgiving was always at our house and Christmas was always at the Devinneys. I could probably write a best seller on those two dinners alone!

My mother would get out the "good dishes." I think she got them with green stamps. She would set the table the day before, while Christmas music blared in the background to get her in the mood to clean. Things were the same year after year. Aunt Babe made the cole slaw. Mary Alice brought the relish tray. And cousin #2 Georgie ate it all. Of all 30 or so of us, I think he was the only one who liked olives and radishes. Come to think of it, I think he was the only one who ate the beets also. And the green beans. Maybe he just didn't like the turkey. I'll have to check on that!

As we got a little older, you knew wedding bells were in the air when one of us brought a boyfriend or girlfriend to Thanksgiving dinner. The engagement ring usually was given that Christmas.

When we kids started having kids, we just kept adding a card table. When there was no more room in the dining room, we just started setting up additional tables in the living room of my mom's tiny house.

We were young and we had no idea that when we were cramming around that table holding our hands up high in the air when Aunt Babe screamed "WHO WANTS PUMPKIN PIE?" that they would be some of the best moments of our lives.

Oh.......just maybe we did. The grandkids and great nieces and nephews still tell me how much they loved sharing holidays meals and were thankful that we did it as many years as we did until logistically, it just couldn't be done anymore. We only had one bathroom!!

These two crazy sisters raised their kids to enjoy each other. So much so, that all these years later, we still consider ourselves not just cousins, but friends. As my sister in law once proclaimed bitterly "Not everyone has a peachy keen family like yours!

And for that......this Thanksgiving I am especially thankful to Harriet and Babe! Thanks for making our crazy family "peachy keen!"



So folks, that's my take on things this week. Like it or not.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

*The picture above of my mother and Aunt Babe was taken on Thanksgiving 1974. The only workspace they had to feed thirty people was the kitchen table. Notice the towel rack right on the wall, And the sink with the pipes, my mothers apron,come to think of it, I don't remember having cabinets in the kitchen and can't remember where we kept the every day dishes. (we never had to do the dishes, Thank God!!) The "good" ones were kept in the China Cabinet.....my mother would kill me if she knew I sent this picture of her dirty kitchen all over the Internet!!

A MILLION THANKS!!!!

The years between 18 and 21 were probably the best, most fun years of my life.
As my mother said to me, "College was the most expensive good time you'll ever have!"
I think about this as I look at this picture of my father when he was that age. When I was 18, my biggest problem was planning how to sneak a keg past Sr. Elizabeth while she stood guard at the front desk of Baldwin Hall. While my father at that age was loading bombs and unloading dead bodies onto planes in Africa and Italy. He was a baby for cryin' out loud.
I'm thinking he paid a much steeper price during his college years.
So when he should have been whooping it up, he was seeing what he prayed his kids and grandkids would never have to see. Hell, he was praying that he even lived to see kids and grandkids.
And while I was saying my tearful summer good bye's to Judo and Keto. He had to say permanent good byes to childhood friends and neighbors like the Owens and Stutzman boys.
I can't imagine. I really can't.
I am forever grateful to him and the millions of other servicemen who gave up the best years of their lives so that nuts like me could whoop it up!!!!!!!


* Here is a story of the day my father came home from WWII

* Here is a story about my Uncle who barely survived the war.

*St. Mary's Church in Lawrenceville lost the most parishioners in the diocese during WWII. The Stutzman boy was a friend of my fathers. He was a little older than my dad. He was shot down on Christmas Eve over Italy in 1942. Every year Christmas Eve mass was said in his honor. (Until they closed the church five years ago) He worked for the Pirates before the war. He let my father and other neighborhood kids be bat boys. It was something my father talked about for the rest of his life. This man did something in his short life that made life long memories for a bunch of poor kids from the hood!