When I was a kid we always had Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandmom's house. She lived in South Philadelphia in a small garden front twin home. It wasn't really a big house and when we arrived it was as full as it could be. When I was very small it was my Grandmom, Grandpop, along with my Uncle Joey and Uncle Pete who also lived there; add in my Mom, Dad and the three of us kids and it got crowded.
One thing you need to know is that my father made his living as a bartender in a neighborhood taproom. That taproom was right around the corner from my Grandmom's house. In Philadelphia the only days taprooms closed were Sundays and Election Days; that meant my father always had to work on Thanksgiving and because of that we had dinner early. I can't say I remember the exact time but it had to start before two in the afternoon.
The table was always full. Too crowded to hold all the food. There was the requisite relish dish with celery stalks and black olives. The tiny bowls for the cole slaw that was always served. Dinner plates, the fancy little glasses for the tomato juice that was always part of a fancy meal and then the space in the middle for the serving bowls and platters. My grandmother always sat in the chair closest to the kitchen so she could jump up to refill anything that got emptied and to be sure her brothers were served first so they could leave the table and get away from the noisy kids. I remember those dinners as the best. There was always laughter.
Invariably after dinner we would go and get out of the grownups way by going out on the enclosed front porch and counting the pennies in the jar my grandmother had on the kitchen sideboard. That would keep us busy for a long time. My father would have a quick nap and then would get up and walk around the corner to be at work by five. We were never in a rush to go home. Around seven or so my grandmother would put on the coffee pot and then it was time for turkey sandwiches followed by pie. Around nine my mother would get us all ready and we would either stand on the porch and watch for the bus to turn onto the avenue so we could make it to the corner and catch it before it passed or we would call a cab to get us all back to our part of the city.
The last great Thanksgiving was in 1956. My youngest sister was an infant and it was the last year that my grandfather was with us. He died the following October and we had Thanksgiving 1957 in a restaurant. It would be more than 30 years before we did Thanksgiving in a restaurant again.
Dinner moved to our house around 1970. It moved a few times after that as well but this is not the time for those memories.
The funniest thing I remember about that Thanksgiving after my Grandpop died....We were having dinner at a nice restaurant on Chestnut Street and we were finishing up our meal. The waitress came over to see if we were all right and asked if we needed anything and my brother, who was six at the time piped right up, "Can we have seconds?"
Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Remember as you sit down to your table on Thursday that it might not seem to be an extraordinary day to you but it may be the building block of someone's treasured memory.
