I'M FROM...an homage to Linda Christensen

I'd never heard of the poet/educator, Linda Christensen, until I began my initial license class, in curriculum development, with Dr. Sara Young. (A new, fast-track professional licensing program, for those of us whose careers had taken LIFE as the road to travel (instead of directly following the path of academia and credentials),begun at Worcester State University, with the blessings of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.) I find myself headed to become what I had so desperately avoided: a High School English Teacher. However, having known, up front and personal, on all coasts and directions, multitudinous English teachers over the years, my perspective on what and who an English Teacher might be, has vastly enlarged. (Or maybe I've just grown-up?) In any case, my karmic path keeps pulling me back to teaching jobs, so, I've decided to "pay attention" and do this thing for real. Legit. On track and with the blessings of the Commonwealth.

Since I am back here, with aging parents and blood family, and still looking for gainful employment, it makes sense to seek the licenses that will help meet best ends. Teaching IS something I've always done and loved. It is the idea of lesson plans and dry curriculum and state- mandated (now Federal, too) standards and testing that curdles my innards. Always has. Always will. But, hey, every job has a down-side. (Even this writer's business...)

So, I've begun the journey at Worcester State University. I am being cheered on by old friends, one of whom is taking these classes right beside me. (And if Helayne hadn't introduced me to this program, or didn't have a car, I would probably still be straddling both coasts, about to slip into the abyss of "no jobs"...) But Helayne, who has her MA in history from WSU, found this new program. She set up an interview with the assistant Dean to talk sense to me. (Helayne also has a dependable car.) It helps, immensely, that we've been close buddies since Gardner High, so many decades back...(Fate makes us classmates, once again.)

When Dr. Sara Young gave us the first assignment of checking out the "I'm From" poems by Linda Christensen, who developed the poetry and its recipe to give kids in her own classrooms a route to painless introductions, I was game. Hey, in all those years at UCI Farm School, I'd taught poetry and prose to two generations of kids. I know the power of the written word--especially to tongue-tied adolescents. (Same in L.A., via GLASS, Inc. high risk foster teens.) All those group therapy writing classes demonstrated this fact.

So, now it is my turn.

(In honor of the lesson plan and work of Linda Christensen and her poetry, I toss my hat into the ring:)

I'M FROM

 (a poem in homage to Linda Christensen, via the promptings of  Dr. Sara Young )

Fairy-folk dancing around the Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Tucked in tight mid the hairy legged Vikings

As they headed out to pillage

Across cold north seas.

I'm from tree-hugging Druids and Saints who

Burned with them; from red-skinned

Warriors and blonde tressed

Hunters; blue-eyed healers who could not see.

I'm from wild-mouthed Irish, both Protestant and

Catholic; from ice-minded Norsemen; all

Fighters and French; from uncounted Natives;

The wind still blows us.

I'm from place-cards invisible; maps yet unwritten;

Gene pools and dark ponds and

Star trails in Heaven; I am Hope; I am Joy; I am

Salted ,and Alive with this Love.

Karen Marie Christa Minns

CRABBY AT CHRISTMAS

This is a story about my nurse-sister, Ann, who told it to me over breakfast, recently. (If I've mixed up a few names or names of places, forgive me, Ann; the story is still true...) We were discussing how, after 35 years away, it still strikes me as something wonderful: big, lazy snowflakes swirling around, the week before Christmas. Gorgeous blue lights adorning each tree in the park, at the end of Maple Street; Mom putting up the Christmas Manger Creche, with the same Baby Jesus (left out till Christmas Eve) we grew up with and all the remembered ornaments, familiar-again scents and sounds of a New England holiday season.

Ann was unimpressed, having just gotten off another rugged night shift in the ER. Too many psychotics demanding turkey sandwiches and chips-- while they waited for admittance into the psych ward.

"I get it. You are totally stressed. Still, it's amazing, being back here, after spending the past few years in mid-town, L.A., with homeless peeing in the trash cans outside my building; or gangs practicing holiday "shots", up and down La Brea..." I tell her.

"Yeah, well...I'll be glad when the season's over," Ann rolls her big blue eyes, thinking I'm a sap.

"Try to focus on stuff you do love about Christmas...seriously," I say, sounding like the ex-teacher-social worker I am.

"I do remember one Christmas, in the Peace Corps...my friend and I had gotten some time off for the  holidays; we'd saved up all year' to go into the only major town in Lesotho. We hitchhiked under the summer sun, me in my knee- length skirt and backpack, he in his best townie clothes, all the way into the city. We had scored reservations for a couple days--just get hot showers, room service and  time in decent beds. But, suddenly, in the midst of unpacking, HE began to get nostalgic for his family, back in the village. I couldn't believe it! We'd been planning this trip for months! Finally, on Christmas morning when we woke up,he couldn't stand it. I couldn't afford another day by myself,either, so I had to pack, too. I was so pissed!
On top of that, there was no traffic coming into or going out of the city on Christmas. We were stuck...on the road, fighting heat exhaustion,literally for hours. Mid-day, a carload of tourists from South Africa showed up and offered us a ride. They were in a party mood and offered to take us all the way into the mountains, to the village of my friend. They wanted to see "authentic Lesotho"! The problem was, MY village was about two miles off the main road, and not in his direction. So, they took me to where I had to peel on to a footpath and trek the two miles back up to my village. Merry Christams...what a pain!

"I had my backpack still full of "treats for the weekend"--mostly canned stuff and whatever junk food we had been able to procure. Also, all my toiletries and clothes for the city weekend getaway...what a joke! So, there I was, this sixty pound pack on my aching shoulders, exhausted, dehydrated, feeling abandoned, upset, in my best skirt and sandals, slogging in the sweltering sun, alone on Christmas Day, in Africa.

"Suddenly, I hear all this pot-banging, and really high voices coming down the road. About fifteen little kids--with spoons and pot lids-- yelling "Happy! Happy! Happy!" dancing down the path, directly toward me.

"You have to know how little this village had--the poorest of the poor--their culture had been squashed out of them by invading people for years--the kids had the big bellies and bigger eyes you usually see on t.v. Dressed in scraps of rags, barefooted, dusty, they came up to me, surrounding me and grinning.

"Happy Happy Happy!" they sang, all the while banging pots--their version of a Christmas morning celebration.

"I growled, something, like, "Get away! I just want to get back to my hut!" or something equally crabby.

The kids knew me from classes that I taught at their church.I wasn't just some random stranger.
They all got quiet. The smallest boy reached into his torn pants pocket.I thought he was going to pull it inside out, asking me for a coin. Instead, he took out a fuzz-covered hard candy. He took a step toward me--the big blonde American with the stuffed backpack, sweating and swearing on the village path.
He held out his grubby little hand and offered the candy to me.

"Happy, happy!" he smiled.

All the kids burst into cheers and started banging their pots. I looked down at that raggedy kid and his lint-covered candy. I burst into tears."

(At this juncture, I burst into my own tears. Then I laughed.I could "see" Ann, the tough blonde American in her best skirt and sandals, her ass-length hair streaked with African sweat, her backpack off-kilter and weighing her down, her boyfriend jouncing in a jeep with a bunch of tourists,their weekend ruined; her swearing as she slogged home...I could see it, feel it, smell it...)

"Those little kids started to hold up the bottom of my pack, and push my butt up the path...just singing and banging the pots. When I got to my hut, I opened my pack and took out all the weekend supplies, plus my wallet, and anything else I had in there that I knew they could use. The rest of the afternoon, in my yard, we celebrated one of the best Christmases I've ever had...me and fifteen of the grubbiest, poorest kids on Earth."

Ann put her teabag into her boiling cup of water and proceeded upstairs--to continue wrapping gifts.

(Merry Christmas, my sister. I'm glad you are home from Africa.)

Merry Christmas to us all--Happy, Happy. 

ITS COMIN' ON CHRISTMAS

Like Joni Mitchell penned in "River", I feel I need "someplace to skate away on..."

My parents' house is beginning to be filled with decorations,baking activities, packages and people, on an hourly basis. Because I haven't mastered which doorbell is back and which is front (still)--and that is further complicated by the dog giving me an amused look, then running to BOTH doors, in random order--while voices from upstairs, downstairs and the celler laundry room  instruct me on which door to answer--usually with an added chime from the house phones (their are MANY extensions and mobile phones in this house)...I am more than a bit rattled. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm usually upstairs, online, writing, answering e-mails (or contacting publishers, presses) and seeking full-time employment. My mind is in the ethers and my hearing attuned to the laptop. (Not the doorbells.) Between the delivery persons and the visitors, this place is rollicking! 

UPS, USPS, the local florist, and various political organizations all seem to be converging on the vortex of Maple Street. I am attempting to be of some small service. (I admit: some of the boxes are mine...)I help Dad haul in packages that are bigger than both of us. (Mostly ordered by Ann-the-Generous, for the extended family.) Sometimes, though, Dad gets macho on me and insists that HE can haul in the boxes himself. Since I now outweigh him by several kilos (smile) and am almost his height, this isn't often true. But for sure, only one of us, plus the giant packages, can fit through the screen door and the hallway door and the living room door--at least simultaneously.

My strategy is the "drop-the-box-and-go-into-a-crouch-and-push" position. (I'm sure there's a corresponding yoga pose...)While Dad looks on in great disgust, it still beats his "tottering-in-pain-bending-the-aching-back-haul-up-into-the-house" curls. Of course, when Ann is home, she merely orders us all out of the way, mustering her nurse-as-WonderWoman muscles, and flips the packages onto her shoulders;proceeding directly upstairs to her bedroom. It's pretty amazing. (Makes me feel like the dim-witted interloper I probably am...smile.) Somehow, we've retrieved it all from the front porch before any masked bandits. HOARDERS isn't scheduled to film here, anytime soon, either.

The "secret wrapping sessions", with half-closed doors, rustling paper and the occasional jingle-jangle of decorative sleigh bells, fills the hallways. Last weekend, Ann bribed (paid) my youngest niece to help her finish the third round of wrapping. (Luckily, Mer was in need of fast cash.) 

Of course, I am of no use whatsoever. It has been (since childhood) the family joke, that "K.K. wraps like someone from an adult workshop"-- they haven't meant elves' at the North Pole. It's not politically correct nor even very nice, but I've come to accept the title. I mean, I over use tape of any kind --resorting to duct tape in a pinch. My talents are two dimensional. Oh, I write a helluva card, even a gift card might contain a poem or anectdote; but when it comes to actual wrapping...well...it's lucky Mer is still around to help.How many Christmases past have I been told, "We can't figure out how a visual artist like you can be such a lousy gift wrapper???" I haven't figured it out, either. All I can say is: thank God for the invention of gift-bags! 

As fast as the presents come in, they are delivered; strict warnings attached not to open till Christmas. But, they ARE delivered. The energy coming off this enterprise is palatable. It's a kind of factory-sense to the operations. I'm sure the North Pole Business Model is at play, somewhere. For reals.

My family is generous, as well as fierce. Gift-giving is a way of loving. It just gets overwhelming (to me), sometimes. Even as I am a definite recipient of that genrousity and amazed at how, for decades, it continues to be passed along.

 Now, we are beginning THE SEARCH for the perfect Christmas Tree...

     

THANKS GIVING EVE

There have been many

OCEAN, BEACH, SEA, WATER, TIDE, MIST,FOG (perfumes)

For whatever reason this past week, I've been yearning for a new scent in my life. CK ONE used to be the old favorite, followed by HALSTON, (for heavier dates.) But then, it seemed that every twenty-something I'd run into was smelling exactly like a Calvin Klein ad torn from ROLLING STONE or MARIE CLAIRE magazine...(HALSTON was great, until I received three notes from friends,informing me that their mail carriers objected to my scented letters...) Clearly, it was Time for a Change.

I took this quest quite seriously.What is more essentially feminine than a perfect scent? (Though I've never been anyone's idea of a "girly girl", I am, still, essentially female.I like to smell good.) So,which perfumes expressed my soul? What secrets did I want to share, without uttering a word? What images, to stir, in the midst of strangers? (While still not clearing an elevator?)

Growing up in the era of musk oils and sandalwood, floral scents never seemed to reflect my inner being-- that's what wearing perfume is all about, right? Patchouli was just "too too"...(bringing up memories of college friends who eschewed deodorant (sometimes, soap) in favor of the thick clouds of resin).Cleaner scents of citrus and mint just didn't last. I didn't want to smell like a candy-store, either.

The quest continued, forever forward: waterfalls, hidden pools, moonlight, wind, rainclouds...Unfortunately, nobody has perfected the craft of bottling these essences. Still, I could dream. I could sample. I could follow the forever out of reach visions...the odors of Heaven...sigh.

Even as I find myself far from the nearest beach, my craving "for ocean" continues to roar. Search engines direct me to "beachy-sounding" products; however, upon close inspection, the perfumes tend toward Farmers' Markets, rather than surf and sand. (I don't crave apricots and vanilla...nor even honeysuckle and melons....cinnamon and apple are best in desserts....and I don't want to smell like a cucumber...) I have found myself on travel sites and dive shop sites, seeking the scents of the waves. All to no avail...

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode, where Kramer slips into Calvin Klein's office, attempting to sell the idea of "The Beach"--only to be escorted out. Several months later, a date of Jerry's shows up, sporting a cologne that EXACTLY captures the scent...Oh, how I fantasized about that perfume.
I have sought it for decades; each time disappointed. (Rain, tropical forests, magnolias and jasmine, honey- suckle, roses, lilacs and coconuts are NOT beach scents. Not really.) I am seeking it, still.

I want the crash of the waves. I want the sand and cold fog. I want the sound of gulls; scents of shells and wet stone. Tide. Mist. Rushing water and foam...a slight sting of salt; ozone and sea-spray...is this so difficult to understand? Perhaps...sigh.  Perhaps.
(Quipsters remind me that a day at the beach can also smell like hotdogs; dead fish; tarballs; sunscreen; and oil-slicks.) Okay. Maybe. Sometimes.
 But I am dealing in desire. Dreamtime; hearspace;fantasy.

So, if there are Spirits of the Holidays reading this blog...seek out an Ocean/Beach/Coastal Eddy splash for under my tree....

If I can't be at water's edge for Christmas, at least I might carry the scent.   

AVOCADO BLUES

Growing up in Massachusetts, I was drawn to stories of struggling artists in big cities--how they began to understand themselves; how they escaped their hometowns; how they found which Big City to escape to; and finally, all the details of their daily existence. It mattered less to me what their final contributions to the world ended up being. More important: how, who, where and why.

Something every artist seemed to possess, whether in a fifth floor walk-up in NYC or a Paris attic, was an avocado plant. Like some sort of exclamation point, standing on its head: a woody, single stalk, reaching forever skyward. The first green leaves "the point"; maybe "the point of no return"; or, "the point of it all"...hmmm. Whatever the symbolic meaning, avocado plants, grown from single seeds, sprouting a long, white root in a glass of water while balancing on three toothpicks, well, this was real-world magic. The perfect house pet for starving artists around the world. If you really were an artist, you could grow one. You had to grow one. It was like, well, Cosmic Law.

When I got to school in New York, it was upstate; far from NYC walk ups. Still, at college, I was led to believe that I would BE the artist who would make it. Excellent mentors; access to the best studios; adults who maybe smiled at my drive, but who,nevertheless, propelled me forward, honestly hoping I was right. It was a kind of gift. For a while...

They never fed us avocados in upstate New York, at Wells College, in the seventies. The first time I ever had guacamole, though, was in my paramour's cottage, just after our first break-up/make-up, during a late snowstorm. I attempted to salvage that wondrous pit...much as I tried to salvage the relationship (the first adult connection I was to experience, and the one that has scarred me, since). I learned about the- three- toothpick- balancing -act- above- the- shot- glass- full- of -water. The proper depth to hang the semi-dry "seed" and how one should change the water every few days, until the white, thready taproot appeared.

(People were less sure about the next step, though. And without proper instruction, I always ended up with a rapidly decomposing taproot and a bald head slightly poking it's top above the dirt.)

 Much like the relationship that cold spring, my avocados always began with miraculous strength. Then, they dried up, and left only headstones of defeat, in the dirt.

When I fled to Los Angeles and lived in several artist communes during the hey-days of Performance Art, growing avocados in coffee cans was either a.) quaint and literary or b.) quaint and romantic. Not quite "edgy enough" and way too domestic for the radicals I hung out with...I soon gave up the practice. However, in my heart, I always knew: if I could grow a successful avocado plant from a pit, I truly would become the artist I always dreamt of.

Several relationships, cottages, lofts, farms, condos and beachhouses later, the nurturing of the plant evaded me. At one point, as the Head Teacher at the UCI Farm School, an entire class of sixth- graders sprouted avocados for me for Christmas. Dutifully, they wrapped their successful projects in colorful paper and metallic ribbons, presenting them to me at the annual Parent and Kid Solstice Party. I was touched...but my touch was death to all the avocado plants. Some suggested that it was the incense (Nag Champa) that I insisted on burning during meditation. Others suggested maybe I just wasn't watering them enough. Or, too much. Or not giving them the proper sun. Or shadow. Or warmth. Or coolness. One very wise third- grader from Sri Lanka told me: "Maybe you just aren't good with things in pots."

Maybe.

And it was true: indoor plants never bloomed for me. Even caged animals I tried to keep, died horrible deaths far too soon. (Not from neglect, but from accidental causes--mostly stemming from paranoia about accidental causes...sigh.) My best friend presented me with a wax cactus plant--a candle that was so cunningly made, people often watered it when staying over--believing surely I would kill a cactus, too. I'm good with candles. It outlasted even the Farm School, and moved away with me, back to Los Angeles, where I started up with the avocados again. (My first solo loft on Detroit Street, mid-town, the Miracle Mile: what better place to grow an artist's trademark?)

Alas, it wasn't to be. I sure ate enough guac and sliced avocado on my salads, but sprouting a plant: nada.

So, with a kind of fatalism (and irony that I don't usually possess,) I ate the avocado my Mother brought home from Hannaford's (three weeks after she bought it.)

"Most of them were so mushy--but this one's really hard and fresh! Here!" she handed it to me triumphantly. When I left it out on the kitchen table to ripen, no one in the family believed I would ever really eat it.

Finally, it did ripen and was soft enough to make guacamole. It was not L.A. street vendor style, but, it did remind me of my previous 35 years on the other coast...sigh. I couldn't bring myself to toss out the pit. I  washed and dried it like an infant. I put it on the windowsill for a few days. Then, begging three toothpicks and my Father's best whiskey- sipping- shot- glass, I propped the pit and waited.

"What the Hell is that?!" Dad asked the first morning he saw it over his breakfast. "Don't tell me it's some kind of alien experiment!" (He was serious. In his eyes, like the rest of the family, I'm still "that weird junior high schooler doing alien investigations at the kitchen table"...)

I assured him it was a terrestrial agricultural attempt.

"What are you doing with that thing?" My niece inquired while sipping a Capri Sun after geometry class.

Again, I explained the venture.

"But why, Auntie K.K. ?" she scowled at the pit.

"All artists keep avocado plants. It's just...something we do," I sighed, trying to convince myself that I was still historically significant.

"It's gross." Ann blew in, dropping her keys and fifty pound purse on the table, almost spilling the glass.

When we went to the Highland Games for six days, I forgot about the pit. It was on the way home that I realized this. Yet again, I had "killed" something I loved. How many of the avocado race would fall prey to my mindlessness?

"Well, we didn't know what we were supposed to do--so, we kept changing its water--every day," Mom and Dad informed, me when I walked back into 88 Maple.

"Unbelievable," Ann rolled her eyes. 

"Look!" I pointed to the bottom of the pit. Whatever watering they had done had made the critical difference. On the bottom,a tiny crack had appeared. And from it's creamy depths, something that resembled a maggot was hanging.

"Gross," Ann, the nurse, said.

I thought it was beautiful.

For three weeks, the taproot made its way downward. When it hit the bottom of the shot glass, even my Mother agreed, I needed to plant it in real dirt. Dutifully, she took me to the cellar. There, amid Christmas boxes, old sleds, Dad's abandoned "worm box", were about fifty  planters of all sorts and sizes. 

 "Help yourself," Mom took one step out of the room, then, coming back, insisted I use a large tin vase with  flowers painted on it. (Beggars don't bite the hand that hands them the pot.) I took it into the backyard and rooted up some soil from a terra cotta planter that once held geraniums.

Inside, I placed it on the windowseat in the diningroom, where the sun hung around all day.

"You know, all the nematodes and insects that are hibernating this time of year are in that soil are going to wake up. You are now giving them a warm, inviting habitat..." Ann indicated the Ant Farm, that I had created.

In horror, I removed the painted pot (and avocado) to the front porch railing. Safely back outside.

For two weeks, I watered it, talked to it, and waited for it's little brown skull to produce at least one spike. Nothing. I could only pray for the taproot under the soil. (But, it was getting sun. It was airing out.) Nothing alive had crawled from the dirt. It had other plants to commune with. All seemed balanced in its natural new world.

Until the next "accident". Early frost. Bane of New England. A white coating over everything, one morning in October. In horror, I ran out to the porch. Yes. The lovely tin painted pot with its tiny avocado head just peeking from the new dirt was covered in ice crystals. (I felt like a funeral sounds.)

Once again, I had accidentally destroyed what I had been so carefully nurturing. What the Hell was wrong with me?

"What the Hell is wrong with you?" Ann saw me bring the pot inside.

"There are no more bugs in here," I told her, plunking the pot on the windowseat, in the pale sun.

"No avocados, either," she said.

I couldn't give up.

I reflected on the rough road wild avocados have...how they fall from trees, sometimes hundreds of feet high; the fruit is ravaged by raccoons and possums and people; the pits then scarred and ripped, tossed asunder. And yet...a few manage to go on to the next incarnation in their fruity lives. I knew because I had shared a wonderful artist's cottage with a leather craftsperson, who worked for the studios, outside of  Burbank. Close to the L.A. river (which would horrify any New Englander), an avocado tree that was seventy -five years old, guarded our back yard. (I knew the raccoons and possums and skunks and humans who would steal the green treasures. I knew the life-cycle of those pits that survived.) So, maybe, my pit, too, would pull through.

I could only hope. Pray. Duck the jarring comments of my family; about how California has fried my brain, for sure.( And wait.)

Yesterday, coming into the diningroom to water the pit, I noticed : a weird shadow against the sunny window.

Upon close inspection, I discovered: FAITH is something short, brown, with a fuzzy topknot of bright green!

Somehow, my avocado has sprouted! An inch of growth overnight! I shouted to everyone who was home, including Maeve-the-Wonder-dog! (Only Maeve seemed to share my enthusiasm--much like she shared my guacomole...) None of them had attempted to sprout this particular fruit for four decades, without a single success. None of them had attempted to own the "self" they dreamed about since childhood. They had all become successful in their professional lives. They had all created solid realities in New England. Only I had run off; run away; always chasing "something" I could never quite catch. The avocado was the symbol of exactly that.(Cue cheesy music...) Maybe.

Today, it is still green and reaching upward, sitting safely on the windowseat, in the sun.

(I did, however, see a fruit fly take off from the pot...)

Only time is gonna tell.

       

THE MEAT RAFFLE

Perhaps there have always been meat raffles--somewhere. However, not where I've been. So, it was with much trepidation that I allowed my sisters to "sign me up for Saturday night".

Sacred Heart of Jesus School's annual holiday meat raffle.

Ann went on to tell me that it was free; they served clam chowder and endless coffee; no minimum spending demanded; it would benefit our old alma mater: Sacred Heart School; and the family went, as a group.

Dad and Mom would be very disappointed if I didn't go.(Even though Mom had already bowed out of attendence, choosing to stay home and "babysit the dog while you all go and have a good time".)

The other side of it, however, which was barely hinted at, was that our family was notorious for winning far more than was neighborly--mostly because nurse-sister Ann almost subsidizes the entire affair herself, armed with enough one dollar bills to choke the proverbial manger donkey. But that was held from me until I agreed to attend.

"One year, Kevin had to bring his truck, to pick up all the meat!" Ann grins. "But don't worry; Dad takes most of the turkeys to the local food bank, or the VFW...Hey, everybody wins!"

Well...since no one could hold it against us if "everybody wins" and the proceeds  go to Sacred Heart ...I didn't see a way out.

"Can I ask Helayne? She isn't doing anything on Saturday night..." I try to make my eyes as appealing as the dog's.

"Yeah, yeah, I don't care," Ann lights a Marlboro and grimaces. "It's open to the public."

So, on Saturday night, armed with assurances that I won't have to look at tables of raw meat spread out like a morgue, and with an old friend by my side, I accompany the Clan, to the gym, where every science fair, basketball game, Christmas pageant, band concert, choir recital or theatre extravaganza of my early years, took place.

Upon entering the building, most everything was as I remembered: the hardwood floor a bit more beat up, the bleachers maybe smaller, but the super-sized- folding- tables, (identical to the ones in the Church basement, down the street), seemed to be the ones I  had left, back in the sixties--still hopelessly stained; constructed of some brown material that was supposed to resemble wood. 

The stage at the front of the gym was the same stage I had played on in the WIZARD OF OZ and A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. (This year, they were going to reprise JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. My cop brother, Kev, had made the original props, a few years earlier...four generations of our family had sweated at this school and it was still ringing us in!)

The odd scents of clam chowder and frozen meat mingled with steam heating. (Not the smells I associate with gyms, but, this has always been so much more than a mere phys ed. room.) 
My family march in, a bit early.
We take up one whole table, on both sides. Helayne, ever the good sport, slides in between me and my Father; her purple coat covering her, neck to toe.( I am immediately aware that I should have dressed in several additional layers.)

"Maybe snow, tomorrow," Dad says, rising for a bowl of  "chowdah".

"But not tonight," everyone reassures me, laughing as my teeth chatter. (I should be on stage, with the pork loins and Butterball turkeys.)

We all line up; recieve a styrofoam bowl with about an inch of clam chowder at the bottom. Dutifully, we eat from plastic spoons and sip the equally tepid coffee, as the guys on stage tease the crowd.

"Ladies and Gents, this is how it works--we raffle items in a group, one after the other. You buy a ticket for a dollah, for that group. We keep pulling numbahs til all the items are claimed. That's the end of that raffle. Then, you buy anothah ticket for the next group--UNLESS it's a special raffle! We do that throughout the evening....those are two dollah tickets..."

"What do you get in the special raffle?" I ask Ann.

"That's your ribs and lobstahs!" Everyone around the table answers. (My taste for lobsters, and ribs, is well known.)

"But what we really are shooting for is the bacon." My sister Bren instructs me on Minns Family Meat Raffle strategy.

(What is it about bacon?

I have never been a true fan.

To my palate, bacon is bacon; whatever you add it to simply gets a baconian flavor on top of whatever else is in the dish. Yes, I like it with pancakes and eggs; maybe on a club sandwich; but really, the national obsession with bacon has never fully flowered in my mouth. )

That doesn't stop the family. 

"You don't get it--they get bacon right from local farms--it isn't Stop and Shop cling-wrap meat, it's...wonderful!" Ann rolls her eyes in a sort of ectstacy.

Up and down the table, my sibs, sibs -in-law, and various familial friends, nod in agreement.

I take another sip of the cooling chowder.

"You know how they made the chowdah this year?" John, a family friend leans into me.

"No," I shrug, clueless.

"Well, you've probably noticed, it isn't home-made, right?" he shakes his head.

"Yeah," I glance down, suddenly suspicious.

"They got every kid at Sacred Heart to bring in a can of soup--Snow's, Campbells, Chunky, you name it...then, the ladies in the kitchen just poured all the clam chowdahs together, into one of those giant pots...that's what we got...notice-- nobody's going up for seconds..." he takes another slug of his Sam Addams Summer Ale.

(I noticed.) "Well, it's free, so," I push the white bowl with the white spoon and the remaining white liquid toward the end of the table, where the trash collectors are making their rounds.

"It's lame," John says.

"Here we go!" The MC spins the wheel. The sound of clicking numbers covers even the whispering kids in the gym. We clutch our first dollar tickets, all thoughts of chowder forgotten.

People close their eyes, praying (I'm sure.)
The wooden Blessed Mother, holding the wooden Baby Jesus, stares down over the crowd, from her perch on the wall. (The other side of the gym holds up Saint Joseph.) I point this out to Helayne, who didn't attend Catholic School.

"You know, as a kid, I used to worry about St. Joseph. I mean, at night, when they turned off the gym lights, he was always alone...at least Mary and Baby Jesus were together..." 

"You are so odd !" Ann hisses across the table.

"Number eighty-seven!" the MC shouts into the mic.

"That's me!" My sister-in-law rises, screaming.

The gym politely applauds. Our table joins in the screaming.
 An old guy, down from us, mutters, "Damn Minnses--they always win everything!"

(I turn my chair, just a bit more towards Helayne.)

My family "high-fives" each other.

Laurene returns with a fifteen pound, frozen turkey; wrapped in plastic and resembling a bowling ball.

"Great way to start the night!" Ann and Brenda slap her hands as she sits down, across from me. Even Dad tips his baseball cap.

"Damn Minnses..." I hear the old guy mutter again.

Pork loins go up for grabs. "Loose meat"--which is defrosted hamburger--in plastic "sacks"--kelbosis and Italian sweet sausage--yards of the stuff--get carted from the stage--while the turkeys are hauled away every few minutes. 

"I told you we win!" Ann hands four pounds of  thawing hamburger to Brenda. "Thanks--I'm making chili--I have guests, tomorrow!"

Dad rises in a wave of hoots and hollars, to claim his bird.
I duck down, just a bit lower.

My fear of having to stare at defrosting meat, has begun to manifest, for real. Behind us, on an empty table, my family has begun to pile its winnings: five turkeys, several bags-o-meat (hamburger); a couple pork loins; some pot roasts; maybe a mile of Italian sausages, kelbosi coiled like snakes in a bag; one side of ribs. ( NO lobsters...)
It's embarrassing. 

The old dude that muttered about us has finally stopped; he scored a sack of hamburger. Now, he's finishing a fourth bowl of  chowdah (and a beer) and is totally caught up in the raffle fever. He waves several bills in the air, trying to catch the eye of the ticket sellers as they blast past.

Suddenly, the MC says the magic words: "This is a special raffle--for the bacon!"

Every single hand along both sides of our table rises. (Even Helayne is bidding on the meat!)

"Here, here!" My sisters and father and sister-in-law flag down the ticket sellers as they rush between tables. 

There are only so many numbers on the wheel and so many tickets for each drawing.(There is also a limited supply of bacon.)

"That seller has completely ignored our table!" 

"She's only selling to her kids--over there--have you noticed?"

"I'm going to report this to the Principal--she's sitting with another nun--you can't tell, because they don't wear the habits--but they live together, still. Sister Gloria will put a stop to this!"

"Over here! We need tickets, over here!"

I haven't raised my hand. My sister Ann shoots a dollar bill across the table. "It's for the bacon!" she reminds me.

I slide her bill back. Reach into my wallet. Take a dollar out.

We get our tickets.

They begin calling numbers. 

Nobody at our table wins.

There is much sadness and grumbling accusations about favoritism and how ticket sellers shouldn't be allowed to bring their families to the raffle. 
Sigh.

But we keep betting (and breaking the odds).

Behind us, the mountain of meat grows ever higher.

"Number 1-5-1 !" The MC shouts.

Everyone groans.

Suddenly, Helayne is yelling into my left ear. Ann screams. Laurene is up and stabbing her finger on to my ticket. Bren and Dad and all the family friends join in:"YOU WON! YOU WON!"

Shocked (I never win anything-- and that's the truth.), I rise;making my way to the stage.
(Just like graduation in eighth grade or my seventh grade science fair. Feels EXACTLY the same: blood pumping, cheeks flushed, people hollaring, heart thumping, and the Baby Jesus smiling down at me from the gym wall.)

I take my fourteen pound turkey and return to the Clan.

"You really won!" Bren smiles at me for the first time all evening. 

"Aren't you glad you came?" Laurene grins. Ann laughs. Helayne thumps my back.

"You know, it's kinda nice, how your family does this stuff, together," she says.

I glance around the table.

(It's kinda true.)

"Here, you haven't won anything yet--we have seven turkeys piled up behind us--Happy Thanksgiving!" I hand my old friend the frozen bird.

"You don't have to do this," Helayne protests.

Dad, Ann,Bren,Laurene, all the family friends nod at me.

 "Yeah, I do, " I laugh.

Helayne graciously accepts the bowling ball.

The raffle continues.

At the end of the night, everyone drives their cars up to the front of the school, packing their winnings into the trunks, for the ride home.

"Damn Minnses--they're always lucky, " I hear a voice call out to us, from the dark. (Can't tell if it's angry or congratulatory. This is Gardner. It often sounds the same.)

"Well, how was your first meat raffle?" Ann asks, lighting a cigarette.

"It was fun, " Helayne good-naturedly lifts her turkey.

"It helps the school, anyway," Ann puffs.

"They need to upgrade the chowdah, " Bren slips into her car, with Dad and his buddy from the city council. 

"At least Dad's pal won something," she adds.

(Mr. Aries holds up his sausage and turkey and loose meat.)

They sort what's going to the soup kitchen and VFW and what's going to Kev and Laurene's freezer and what's coming home to 88 Maple. 

( I can't help but wonder: did our Celtic ancestors divide the spoils in a similar fashion, after their hunting parties?  Probably. Brrrrrrrrr.)

"Too bad., though. Nobody got the bacon," Ann puffs and waves, as she peels out of the parking lot.

Too bad.