Hollywood Park is Closed; I Had to Spend Thanksgiving with My Family

Last week I went back East to spend Thanksgiving with my family for the first time in ten years. I don’t have anything particularly against my family, though taken all together they can be a somewhat intimidating bunch.  I hadn’t gone home for the holiday because until this year I had a job that, in addition to being awful, had a huge annual deadline that fell immediately after turkey day.

In practical terms what that meant was that for most of the previous decade I had what I believed was a perfect Thanksgiving ritual. First I’d go to Hollywood Park and watch the races. Because of the holiday, the shortened card began and ended early, which allowed everyone to lose money and then go home to their families and try to explain it over dinner.

After the last race, I’d hit the multiplex with a bucket of popcorn and watch a movie. It was fabulous. If I was lucky the only people I’d talk to all day were my friends at the track and the ticket-taker at the movies. A quick call to my folks after the film, and all was good.

That’s all in the past now. Last December, amid a lot of tears and anger, Hollywood Park closed. Oh, and I ditched the heinous gig. I was now free, nay, compelled, to see my family for the holiday. I no longer had a viable excuse for staying away.

I arrived on Monday and planned to leave on Saturday morning in order to avoid horrifically jammed airports. Unfortunately the only flight back left at 7am, which meant I had to leave my mom’s farm at 4:30 in the morning.  

I comforted myself with the thought that it was just 1:30 am West Coast time, and I’d arrive home in time to feed the horses their lunch. That helped a bit when I was scraping ice off the frozen car in 14 degrees in the pitch black morning. It also reminded me why I live in Southern California.

                

           The trip itself was surprisingly nice, though I admit spending an entire day in the company of more than a dozen other humans is rough. The truth is that I live alone for a reason: being pleasant for extended periods of exhausting – and hard work. I guess it builds character. At least that’s what mom insists.

               

           With that many people who are related and therefore far beyond party manners, there is bound to be drama. This Thanksgiving was no exception.

                

           One of my earliest holiday memories is from when lived in Connecticut. We had a big old house that sported a formal dining room which was separated from a butler’s pantry by way of a swinging door.  This particular year the house was packed. The dining room table stretched into the hallway. The head count numbered in the 20s.

               

           Dinner was humming along. With everyone happily tucking into the first course, Mom had taken the giant turkey out of the oven and left it ‘resting’ on a table in pantry, waiting to be presented.  The bird was giant, golden brown and perfectly enticing. Apparently I wasn’t the only one that thought so.

               

When the almost inevitable crash came from the kitchen area, no one was unduly alarmed. Most people probably didn’t even hear it – 20 people are pretty loud. So only a few sharp-eyed relatives saw the breathtaking sight when mom opened the pantry door: There, standing on the table reveling

in the kind of bliss that only a dachshund knee-and-snout-deep in turkey can experience, was our dog, Doxie.

I honestly don’t really remember what happened next. If it had been me, my reaction would have been what I may or may not have done years later when my dog ate part of a cake I made for a dinner party: wiped off the dog hair and served the non-gobbled part.  Since I don’t recall pizza being delivered that night, I suspect that mom did the same.

This year the trouble arrived before the relatives, in the form of the first November Nor’easter New England had experienced more than a decade. In the Berkshires, where mom now lives, we received a little more than a foot of snow. And the guy that never fails to plow the half-mile driveway was on vacation. Because it hadn’t snowed at Thanksgiving in the Berkshires for more than ten years.

Naturally, there was a good deal of hysteria coming down with the snow. This year 16 brave souls were expected for dinner.  If they could get up the driveway.  If not, there were going to be a whole lot of leftovers. And I’m a vegetarian.

It didn’t come to that. I’ve learned a lot from my parents, but one of the best lessons is simple: be nice. If that fails, be pathetic.

Mom, who recently celebrated her 84^th birthday, is a master of both.  Her village is small and everybody seems to know everyone else. That has upsides and downsides, but one of the positives is that people take care of one another. So when mom called a man with a plow, he not only knew her, he liked her. She turned on her best little-old-lady-alone-in-the-world charm and the guy was out of his pajamas and plowing our driveway at 8:30 on Thanksgiving morning before he knew what hit him.

By the time the relatives started arriving, the driveway was pristine. The sun came out, and the snow glistened.  The birds flocked to the stocked feeders and nearby trees.  The food (and wine) was good. All in all, it was quite pleasant. I might come back in another ten years. Maybe even sooner.