"At Least I’m Not Poor!": A Story of Thanksgiving Revenge

My most vivid memory of childhood Thanksgiving is my mother getting up at 5 AM to put the turkey in and making a giant bowl of French Canadian stuffing to go with it. It’s kind of like the filling in Tourtieres, and my Nana used to make it. This was before my father was a vegetarian, obviously, and made us be vegetarians, too, as the stuffing was made of ground pork, onions , golden raisins, mashed potatoes, and, the staple of all stuffings in New England: Bell’s Seasoning. When I moved to Illinois I could not find Bell’s at the Jewel in Bloomington, so I had to settle for something generically called “Poultry Seasoning” which was a poor substitute. It has to be Bell’s. I make this stuffing now occasionally, with either ground turkey or “veggie crumbles,” and although I have no memory of what pork tasted like, I suspect that in this stuffing it was really good. I am the last one in the family to continue making this stuffing, since the other cousins in my generation don’t really like it (nor do most of my aunts) and this makes me more determined to keep the tradition alive, since it’s really the only remotely “ethnic” recipe we have.

Thanksgiving at my Nana’s house meant that the five cousins, me being the oldest and my cousin Jason the youngest (we are six years apart) would usually dress up, get our picture taken in front of Nana’s fireplace, and then we would all eat. Afterwards, when we were old enough, were several rounds of cards. We played for chips sometimes and sometimes money, or chips that stood for money (although I don’t think they were ever really cashed in.) My Nana was a big fan of cards and bingo, and would often get together with her “ladies” in her kitchen, where they shouted and cursed and ate ritz crackers with the cheese you squeeze from a can.

The cousins were divided into two neat groups: two girls (Erin and I, two years apart) and two boys (Christian and my brother, also two years apart) until Jason came along, upsetting the balance. Jason was the baby, almost four years younger than Erin, and although I must mention that he grew up to be a talented artist and a wonderful human being with a great sense of humor, we did not always treat him well. Especially Christian, who is so hard to describe I really can only do it through a list of facts: Christian was hit by a car on three separate occasions as a child, and each time he sustained practically no injuries. He was small and skinny but moved faster and had the loudest voice and most rapid-fire speech of any little kid I’ve ever met. Also, he was a blurter—he just said what he thought, always, and it was usually the thing everyone else was too polite to say (he pointed out to my father on many occasions that he was going bald, the irony being that by age 19, Chris himself had lost most of his hair. He also spent most of my eighth birthday party marching around our house announcing that our Nana was wearing a wig.)

On one Thanksgiving, Jason was playing cards with all of us for the first time. He was still little, so he was learning, but he was smart and getting the hang of it. However, he was far from winning, and his pile of chips was dwindling. Just starting to get a little tired and crabby, he pointed out something Chris had done that had seemed unfair (perhaps peeking at someone’s cards or something like that—Chris never could sit still for a minute.) Chris took one look at Jason’s small pile of poker chips and laughed: “At least I’m not poor.” Then the crying started.

Flash forward many years later, and Jason is grown up and has a Master’s Degree and a lucrative new job. Chris is a few years away from enlisting in the Iraq war, still working part time, and not sure what he wants to do with his life. We are playing cards again, and Jason is still losing. As Chris celebrates his victory, Jason has one last parting shot: “Maybe you won, but at least I’m not poor.”

Although I will see neither Chris nor Jason this Thanksgiving, as Chris is in Iraq, working in one of Sadam Hussein’s former palaces, and Jason is spending the holiday with his wife’s family, I will be thinking of them.

Another family tradition I hope endures along with the stuffing: well-timed revenge.