Turkey Season

“What do you call a cluster of featherless turkeys?  A cluster pluck.”

             (First Thanksgiving by Jennie A. Brownscombe)

Renditions of the first Thanksgiving in 1621 are based on based largely on speculation and myth.  The separatists (later designated Pilgrims) who arrived  on the Mayflower the year before were indeed aided in the cultivation of corn, beans and squash by the Wampanoag Tisquantum (Squanto).  In 1614 he had been captured and sold into slavery before returning to America as a translator and finding his Patuxet band virtually wiped out by a smallpox epidemic.  There is no evidence that turkey was served at the three-day harvest celebration and certainly no pies, but fowl were plentiful in the area, so wild duck or turkey may have been available, and the Wampanoag (“People of the Dawn”) visitors probably provided venison.  Some might have perished in the 1637 Pequot massacre, others (or their descendants) in King Philip’s War during the mid-1670s.

At bridge Terry Bauer mentioned that a daughter was visiting her sister in Hong Kong and found it easy to get around and shop because there were virtually no tourists due to the continuing anti-government protests.  She was surprised to find mountains and hills with plentiful hiking trails.  On one such excursion 25 years ago, I recall encountering a beautiful waterfall and a troop of monkeys that, Dean Bottorff warned, loved to steal cameras from careless tourists.  Don Geidemann and Judy Selund had a final round sit-out.  As they left, Don said, “Happy Thanksgiving, turkeys” – as in jive turkeys. They were amazed to find out later that they scored a 73.61 percent, earning an acknowledgement in Barbara Walczak’s Newsletter.  Geidemann told her: 

  The super game was overdue.  Some may apply the idioms, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometime” or “Every dog has its day” but we believe that we have graduated from “The school of Hard Knocks” both in our personal lives and at the bridge tables. Judy and I initiated our partnership 13 months ago.  Our agreement includes tolerance for missed bids and missed plays.  We are still learning as we go.

Judy added: “Our objective is to minimize the bonehead mistakes.”

 Don Geidemann and Judy Selund, photo by Charlie Halberstadt

We had a great time at Evelyn and Herb Passos’ for Thanksgiving as did Don and Judy, a former gym teacher and longtime friend of Evelyn’s.  I enjoyed chatting with sons Max Passo, who started medical school in August, and Alex, a former student and now an attorney.  Next day, we had 23 family members and guests at the condo for our belated Thanksgiving, almost half of whom spent the night.  Toni served turkey, ham, and a tofu turkey roll that I did not sample, saving room for daughter-in-law Beth’s cherry and blueberry pie.  During the course of the day I played Lost Cities, Acquire, Perudo, and Werewolf.  I was about to turn in when Phil, Alissa, and Beth persuaded me to watch Super Troopers 2, the sequel to the 2002 campy cult classic.  After a hilarious dream sequence, it went downhill but was good for cheap laughs and groan-worthy puns.  Obnoxious Rodney Farva (Kevin Hefferman) tells fellow troopers, “You know they have Eskimo hookers up here [in Canada]?  When they have sex, they really get ‘Inuit.’”  It was fun spotting cameos by Rob Lowe (as minor league hockey legend Guy LeFranc), Lynda “Wonder Woman” Carter, grown up “Wonder Years” star Fred Savage, and black comedian Damon Wayans Jr.

The Memorial Opera House Holiday production, Meredith Wilson’s “Miracle on 34th Street,” was originally a 1947 movie.  In eighth grade at Barnum Junior High in Birmingham, Michigan, I saw the film 30 minutes at a time during a week of lunch hour.  The musical, first titled “Here’s Love,” opened on Broadway in 1963.  Set at Macy’s in New York City, the play references Macy’s competitor Gimbel’s. In the early 1960s when I worked in a law firm mailroom in Philadelphia’s center city, department stores appeared to be in their prime. There was no Macy’s but Gimbel’s, Wanamaker’s, and Strawbridge and Clothier were three of the grandest, with holiday window displays to attract shoppers.

"Miracle on 34th Street" photos by Ray Gapinski

The strong cast included charismatic Thomas Olsen as Kris Kringle (who co-starred in “La Cage Aux Folles”), Frank Allen as a drunk Santa and a fictitious R.H. Macy (the family sold the business in 1895 shortly after founder Rowland Hussey Macy died), and several talented youngsters, including preteen Goldie Samardzija in a prominent role as the store manager’s daughter.  Portage attorney Dan Whitten played several characters, including the Governor and the D.A. While the dialogue was dated (for example, the romantic lead referred to his love interest as a dame), the music and dance numbers were  great.  During intermission I spoke with bowling buddies Dorothy Peterson and Gene Clifford.  During turkey hunting season Gene, 82, arrived at Hobart Lanes sporting a black eye.  When a wild turkey surprised him, he fired his weapon and it recoiled while it was too close to his face. At the curtain call Kris Kringle (Olsen) asked the audience to join in an encore of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.”
                  Dan Whitten, fourth from left

Chancellor Lowe and F C Richardson

At Pesko’s I ordered a Yuengling on draft and steak salad, enhanced by onions Dick Hagelberg discarded and several slices of delicious bread. Brian Barnes noted that he’d attended the annual IUN Chancellor’s Medallion banquet as guest of former dean F.C. Richardson and wife Bernice who were honored for their many years of service to the university.  After serving as Chancellor of IU Southwest, Richardson returned to Northwest Indiana and became an advisor to Chancellor Lowe, whom Brian briefly met. The citation stated:

    Only the second African-American to join IU Northwest’s faculty, F C is celebrated for his advocacy for Black rights during the Civil Rights movement. One of F C’s most important career contributions was his role as advisor for IU Northwest’s Black Caucus, now known as the Black Student Union. 

    F C’s wife, Bernice, earned degrees in elementary education from IU Bloomington in 1968 and IU Northwest in 1973 and spent most of her career in Gary schools, primarily in the roles of assistant principal and principal.  Bernice also served as an IU Northwest Alumni Association board member for several years.

 muddied up Andrew Weil with rosemary and mint plants

In “Food for Dissent” (2019).  Maria McGrath seemed conflicted about self-health guru Andrew Weil, a onetime hippie who kept alive counterculture precepts (i.e., the revolution must begin inside each person’s head) but profited by hawking of all sorts of products purportedly leading to physical well-being. I came across the name of Mike McGrath, editor of Organic Gardening during the 1990s and wondered if he was related to Maria.  The final chapter discussed Ron Dreher, author of “Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counter-Culture and Its Return to Roots” (2006).  McGrath concluded:

  Conservatives’ presence in the hippie-left movement surprised and disturbed natural foods proponents with countercultural biographies and affinities. It should not have. Cultural preservation, pastoral sentimentality, and moralistic consumerism – the movement’s fundamentals – were always there, ready for conservative adaptation.

I came across Rodger McDaniel’s “Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt” (2013).  Hunt, a former Democratic governor elected to the Senate in 1948, was an outspoken opponent of the Wisconsin demagogue Joseph McCarthy.  Rightwing Republicans Styles Bridges of New Hampshire and Herman Welker of Idaho attempted to blackmail him into not seeking re-election after Hunt’s son Buddy was arrested for soliciting sex from a male undercover cop in Washington’s Lafayette Park.  Normally, first offenders got off with a warning and notification to the family, but Bridges and Welker pressured District of Columbia law enforcement authorities into prosecuting Buddy and warned Hunt that they’d publicize the case unless Hunt retired from politics.  Hunt subsequently shot himself at his Senate desk.  The day before, McCarthy hinted that he’d make the sex offense public.  Senate reporter Allen Drury used a fictionalized version of the incident in the 1959 novel “Advise and Consent.”