A Story About Beer

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As Usual

 

Well Thanksgiving was a blur, as usual, but it was good to spend plenty of time with my family and friends. We hosted dinner this year and had two families over for a total of 14 people (6 adults, 8 kids). As you can imagine - lots of food and beverages were consumed.



Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. But it wasn't until college when it became a full scale blowout. Wednesday night Thanksgiving eve I'd usually go to a beef & beer kind of thing at my old high school with my brother. Thanksgiving morning was spent with my neighborhood friends mountain biking and then the day long feast at my parents watching football, eating, drinking (sometimes napping!) and then reconvening with my homies at a select bar in DC.

But by the end of college everything change: I moved to Los Angeles. Those were dire days back then when money was scare so I don't recall ever making it home for the holidays. One year I drove to Seattle with my roommate. It never occurred to me to look on the map - I just took his word for it that it was 16 hours like he said. Since I had nothing better to do, I opted to join him for the drive. I believe it took us close to 22 hours to get there. We left Wednesday, arrived Thursday as dinner was being served. slogged through Friday and then left Saturday to arrive back in LA on Sunday night. Crazy stupid shit that you only do when you are young, dumb and care free.

I remember another Thanksgiving in LA where I spent the majority of my day at work as a pool boy at the Beverly Hills Hilton. It was like a ghost town there. On my way home from my shift, I was hit by an uninsured, illegal immigrant who told me in broekn English that he would fix the damage to the door on my truck at his garage. I opted to take the $60 he had in his wallet and go our separate ways. It totally sucked; I spent the money at the liquor store...

When we relocated back to the East Coast in '95, we made the trek back up to my parents' house in Maryland for the holidays but with family scattered all over the place and few friends still left in the area, it had lost its luster. The five hour drove back home took us 8 and since then we haven't really made it back to my parent's place for Thanksgiving.

But now that we have our own family and a gaggle of friends and some relatives around us, it feels like it has come full circle - we even hosted my parents a few years back.

So aside from the gluttonous feast that it has become and a consumer wet dream, it still is a day that I will always want to spend with family and friends.

And maybe it is because I have had to endure Thanksgiving without those close to me that makes me appreciate when I get to do that all the more.

Let the holidays begin!