My cousin Maura Manley passed away on Friday. She was seven years younger than me, but the first of our adult cousins to go.

About the same time, this post popped up on Facebook. And a picture of my mother in a hospital bed in Florida. She and I spent her last Thanksgiving together, although I had to eat alone in the cafeteria and she had the institutional fare in her room. Still, we spent the day together. One of our last.

I got to spend time with Maura this summer, when she was happy, healthy, and reveling in all the family gathered for a reunion in Pennsylvania. There were a lot of us.

I’m posting this here because, well, because it keeps family from disappearing, as a time when family is starting to do just that.

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In the picture above: Yes, I’m the one who looks like a butterball turkey on my grandfather’s lap. Eight months old. My older brother, Jim, is to the right. He was an old hand at this Thanksgiving thing, a veteran. You can tell by how jaded he looks.

Our folks, Bob and Pat, are at left. At right, my dad’s siblings Don and Mary Lou. Clearly hadn’t met their forever partners yet, but soon. All three of the kids were married for life. They did that in those days. Don and Janet had five sons. Mary Lou and Bill had six daughters and two sons. Jim and I ended up with six more brothers and a sister.

Not in the picture but in everyone’s hearts was the oldest son, Jim. He died on Okinawa. My grandmother Hortense (holding littlest Jim) swore she sat up in bed and screamed out Uncle Jim’s name at the moment he was shot. I believed her. Still do. Folks didn’t make up stuff like that back then. Not like they do today.

The stern-looking guy is my grandfather, another Jim. I forget the dog’s name. Some years later, when there were lots more kids, my grandfather would retreat into his den to watch football on his little screen TV. I remember him trying to shush all the kids. Which was impossible. Then he gave up and just watched the game.

Later, when my grandmother called everyone to dinner, old Jim just sat there watching the game. I think it was my dad who realized that he’d turned off his hearing aids. A neat trick.

Of course, the table grew with the family until it couldn’t grow any longer. It ran the length of the dining room and living room. And satellite tables were set up for us, the precocious little youngsters.
Sometime in the 1960s, the family Thanksgiving feast was moved to a large private dining room at Wanakah Country Club, just off Lake Erie and not too far from where the Buffalo Bills play today. A 15-minute drive.

For us kids, the house in Kenmore had grown too small and stuffy. The club set up an enormous U-shaped table and a couple of kiddie tables. Once settled and speeches were made, the staff would wheel out a bird that probably weighed as much as I did. From the top of the U, my grandfather would make the ceremonial first cuts then turn the whole thing over to the staff.

At the country club, where my grandfather was a big deal, we could terrorize the place. We’d scout the other dining rooms for fruit dishes and pies on unguarded server trays. We cased out the men’s locker room, unsure of what we’d find, which mostly turned out to be colorful golf tees. We’d cajole the bartenders into serving us Cokes with cherries while we watched football.

In the main hall, a long dessert table sagged under sugary riches. That became every kid’s favorite target. It was set up for the rest of the club’s guests in the dining room. We tried pretending to walk over from the dining room and snatch a piece of pie or pudding. When that didn’t work, we’d linger on the shadowy edges waiting for the staff to move on. Then send in one of the little kids for the snatch and run.

After a while, the couch at my grandparents’ house simply couldn’t hold everyone for the traditional family portrait. The country club had an enormous couch for the elders and firstborn. The rest of us would gather around behind them as we grew taller, jostling politely for position. The shortest would sit cross-legged on the floor at our parents’ feet. Babies, of which there were many, had plenty of laps to choose from.

I remember leaving those Thanksgiving gatherings wishing I’d skipped the last couple of desserts. The freezing night air was a welcome relief and braced me for the squeezy ride home to Hamburg. It always felt longer than it was.

In 1968, my grandparents came to my folks’ house just outside of Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving. I had just arrived, too. I came home from John Carroll University in Cleveland, where I was doing miserably. Academically, I was doing miserably. I excelled at Rugby.

When they pulled up in their car, my father and I were at a standoff. He would not let me into the house until I’d gotten a haircut. I was trying to reason with him. (Remember reasoning with adults?)

I rushed over to greet my grandparents and offer to carry their bags into the house. (Tricky, eh?) My father had already snatched my bag into the house before locking me out.

My grandfather paused to look at me, disgust rising on his face. “Oh. You’re one of those.”

I guess I was. It was the times. They weren’t easy.

I got the haircut. I don’t remember a single other thing about that Thanksgiving. Just a long, slow bus ride back to Cleveland.