gib-lets

Thanksgiving is close. I can smell it from here. I am looking outside my front bay window on this early Saturday morning, it's cloudy, cold, no leaves on the trees. Smells like turkey. Fall is a wonderful time of year. It evokes in each of us memories of olden times, not so old times, and Thanksgivings yet to come. Despite the Christmas music I hear playing from my computer, Thanksgiving is all around us. It has brought to my mind especially this year memories of my earliest Thanksgivings. A recent conversation with a co-worker reminded me of a very special memory, and I would like to share it with you:

There are many rights of passage in life, but few can compare with the very first time you are invited to help your grandfather stuff the family Thanksgiving turkey. If memory serves me, I was about 7, that age when you begin to realize with size comes privilege, and we were at my Grandfather Larsen's home. The ca. 1950 home, despite various remodels and upgrades to appliances, had never been able to shake the quaintness that dominated things of that era. The kitchen was small, but spacious to my young mind. It was early on Thanksgiving Day, and preparations were being made. The sun, rising above the mountains to the east, came in softly into the window above the sink, illuminating the small rounded table that sat in the center of the kitchen. Upon the table, glistening in the morning light, sat the largest raw thing I had ever been close to. It had to be a 50 lb. beast if it was a pound. After a thorough cleaning of the hands, I was allowed to touch the bird. I moved slowly forward with my index finger protruding out so as not to have any other part of my body exposed if the creature should somehow come to life and lash out with it's last gasp of life. At that age we are trained to use this approach when touching various things of unknown texture, smell, state of living or dead, wake or sleep, or as a result of a dare. As my finger met the cold, bumpy skin of the future meal, my heart was set at ease, this was not coming to life any time soon. It's long holiday slumber would be finalized in a golden brown, Mexican pinata style frenzy of eating. I breathed a sigh of relief to know that as we worked on the "Tom", there was no chance of attack.

Once you touch something of curiosity as a child, and the initial fear and apprehension is overcome, you cannot resist touching that something. My hands then ventured all around the outside of the bird, the drumsticks, the front, the top, the back, the side. These were the official anatomical terms of a turkey. Then I noticed the string tying the drumsticks together at the end, and the gaping hole that was the, according to Grandpa, "body cavity". I thought to myself, "How strange, that must have been how it died - it got it's feet caught in that string, and when the hunters came it couldn't run away, so they shot it with those guns that have the big end that looks like a bike horn."


"What's that Grandpa?" I said, pointing to what looked to my young eyes like a doorbell on the outside of the turkey. "That's the Tender Timer, Bo. When the inside of the turkey gets to be the right temperature, meaning the meat is cooked right, that red part will pop out, and the turkey is done." Grandpa then began to make the final preparations for the stuffing to begin. His roughened hands moved around the dearly departed with such ease and precision, I could tell he was a Thanksgiving Professional. His hand then reached into the body cavity (my new favorite phrase) and pulled something out. I looked in his hand as it slowly returned from the unknown nether region, and saw that it was containing a small bag of some sort. As he took the wet pouch out, my curiosity running wild like a out of control Macy's Parade inflatable on a windy day, I inquired, "What's that Grandpa??", my nose tweaked and one eyebrow cocked. "Those are the giblets, Bo."

Giblets. In my 7 years, in various locations, among various friends, I had learned an ever expanding vocabulary of what would later be termed as "Slang". Slang was a very powerful force in the life of a child. It was used in crowds of young boys climbing trees or playing marbles. And "new slang" was perhaps the most powerful of all vocabulary words. If you brought a new slang word to your gang, and it was accepted and used by one and all, there is very little else that could bring greater pride. More pride than hitting something you were aiming for with a sling-shot. This word, that was now hanging in the humid, aromatic air above the kitchen, was the piece de resistance. Noting the locale from whence it came and the size of the contents of the bag, I deduced that what Grandpa had just said was a slang word. A slang word, I thought, that was from his childhood. A time of street cars, knickers, stick ball, bread lines. Or, perhaps, a word he had used as a soldier in the Pacific during WWII, said among the fox holes and beach landings of the jungled islands. This was a word that Grandpa must be using to mean the parts of the turkey that make it a boy turkey or a girl turkey.

As my mind wandered and Grandpa took the contents of the bag off the table and somewhere over near the sink, I began to practice using my new slang word in my mind. I could see the thousands of situations where this new word would be perfectly fit into conversation. The possibilities were endless. And the best part was, I had never heard this word before! It was a new slang term that was sure to be used throughout the eternities. Thank you Grandpa, for you have given me the "Golden Ticket" of slang, a gift that will have far greater affect on my life than knowing how to stuff a turkey.

That day passed in a velvety haze of splendor. All the while I was giggling to myself with excited anticipation. Not for Christmas. Not for presents. Not for snow. Not for love of kith and kin. But for the ideal setting in which I could use this new "phrase of wonder".

We sat in close quarters, Grandpa's house stuffed to the brink with relatives old and young. It reminded me of Old Tom. Stuffed to the brim. His giblets removed. His half eaten presence lay at the other end of the table. We had once been close, and now we were separated by what seemed like miles. The din of tinkling forks, clanging of glass, and satisfied moans reverberated below the pleasant conversations of loved ones. It was a sparkly, crisp day outside. All was right in the world. But then, in a moment that will live in infamy, my mind was hit head on and airbags fully deployed as my Grandma called out, "Would anyone else like some more giblet gravy?"