Nov 22, 2019

I mean not any one that stands out in particular. My mother had died when I was about to be 15 so I stayed close to my mother’s sisters because they were in New Jersey. But then my father relied a great deal on his sister, Terry, who was my godmother.

And so when it would come to the holidays it was mostly the Italians part of it that did more of the bigger type thing. The other relatives had something and you always welcomed. But the biggest traditional big meals and everything was always on my father’s side because I had my Aunt Terry and Aunt Del and Aunt Jean. And they were all clustered in Corona. So that we usually where we had the biggest.

But then I was closer again, because I was in New Jersey, I was closer to my mother’s cousins. I mean on my mother’s side, the cousins. They become like sisters because I was an only child and so you reach out as you go. So in terms of really ever doing anything in my own house. At least, all those years…Nothing.

When my father and I moved to Jackson Heights, let me see, that was 1966. And I was working at RKO and give or take. So a little bit more upscale paycheck and different things like that. So we would have, not so much, what do you call it, the big meals per se. But my father worked in the pruned vegetable market. And on that street you had the meat market and you had the flower market and you had the pastry market and you had whatever. So he would rather float up everything. So he has a porterhouse steak. And he has the lemon and the pie, the mince pie and the other pie and the other pie and the cream pie. And he has all the cakes, all that kind of stuff. And so he would always make sure that Terry’s family got it. The mother’s family, the aunts…Here’s for father guy doing the church. Here’s for the principal and holy angels.

So I just recently now found out that my food stamp case actually had gotten resolved. And that I had actually gotten stamps that I didn’t even know I had. But I won’t be able to got another order. But anyway, anytime it comes to food or arguing over food or not having enough or whatever, I just get really… Do anything, just don’t mess with my food…

Because my father was such a blessing to everybody that at the point there’s even a discussion about let alone food stamps or whatever. It just annoys me because our family was such a blessing to other people that I don’t want to be like the beggar on the street, when it’s coming to something like that.

So now these Thanksgivings now will be pretty much, if I can I make the rounds. Kind of like a hi, bye type thing. And they do wonderful Thanksgivings here. There’s no way to go hungry. But then what happens is when I see a lot of food it overwhelms me as much and then I have no appetite.

I remember a boat show around the holidays that they had at one of the piers. And I was walking there to a convention services. It was a nice job. We would get paid off the books and we worked as cashiers and different things at the trade show. And they had one of the piers filled with food. And I swear, you’d walk through and the irony is you see so much of it that you can’t…

I think I said, “May I have a sandwich.” And I walked out with a finger sandwich and a little bowl of ice cream. And so I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. And at the end of it, it was like take whatever you want.

There’s so much. And people like stuffing themselves… And I was looking and it was like where’s City Harvest? Where’s the homeless? So, they gave me some sandwiches and some stuff. I guess I walked. And within a block, two blocks, there are the homeless lying in the street by the Time Square Church and along Seventh Avenue. I think I had 20 sandwiches. They had the sandwiches. I walked home and I had to stop at McDonald’s.

To get a coffee and yogurt or an ice cream. And I said, I wish I had a trade show with all this food. But I couldn’t, no appetite. So anything that becomes so overwhelming. Anything will. Too much of anything. So maybe sometimes we’ve had too much. And we need to be grateful because there were times we didn’t have.

And the balancing. The balancing. And it’s Thanksgiving, but how about a kind word? How about I try to say hello to somebody? Now I walk around with lollipops. I mean, it’s a little bit of… But you will be amazed that people are so grateful that you just even say hello.