Thanksgiving
I loved it even when I had to sit at the children’s table, squabbling with my cousins with playful glee.
I loved the stuffing and dark meat, pies bursting with apples or pumpkin filling, cream pies oozing bananas.
I loved the warmth of hugs from my elders (but not the pinches), listening to their gossip and watching their complex interactions and my sensitive mother’s reactions.
I loved it all, and eagerly took on the role of hostess when I married and moved to a new city, far from my clan. Under a sparkling chandelier, my dining room table was set for 12 with China we’d hand-carried from England and gleaming silverware. Serving platters were carefully arranged on crisp celadon linen, around a straw cornucopia of autumn fruits and flowers.
Along with appetizers, there’d be a perfunctory tip of the hat to gratitude, then my husband would bring the carved bird from the kitchen, shouting, “Dig in!” and friends, neighbors and visiting relatives would fill their plates, partaking of all that our bountiful lives afforded us.
Over the years, the cast of characters changed. Babies evolved into teens, new faces replaced those lost to divorce, illness and death. Eventually, I sold my house and moved to a large apartment, where my Thanksgiving tradition continued. I invited foreign families of my son’s Washington International School classmates, who contributed new dishes to our sacred ritual.
A few years later, when that son, Michael, moved to San Francisco, married and announced a baby on the way, I packed the China and linen, the silverware and cornucopia, and headed for Walnut Creek, California. My sisters had moved to the Bay area in the 70s, as hippies, my older son lived a stone’s throw away in Los Angeles, and suddenly I was awash in family again.
So, on my first California Thanksgiving, though it was a tight fit in my new condo, my table was extended with four leaves and once again graced with my beautiful things, sans chandelier. It was fun to be together after so many years, on my favorite holiday.
But the time came when one guest requested a vegan meal, another gluten-free, and yet another, pescatarian. My limited kitchen skills were tested as I prepared salmon, as well as turkey, and re-heated a multitude of vegetable casseroles. I was frazzled. The thrill of the holiday was gone.
That was the year I bequeathed our Thanksgiving tradition to Michael and my daughter-in-law, Georgianna. They had just restored an old house in Oakland and could easily accommodate family and friends in their massive dining room.
I transitioned well, never looked back with longing to my hostess days. We dined on turkey and Dungeness crab and kvelled over my grandson Philo. Eventually, he tried his hand as chef and regaled us with home-made focaccia and other delectables as he grew.
In my 70s, I found a lovely little home in Rossmoor and downsized for the umpteenth time, planning to bring only necessities, my art and photos, and small keepsakes. But as the movers placed my beloved dining room set and boxes of China near the elevator, to be picked up by a charity, they found me sitting on one of the chairs, crying. I felt so foolish. Crying over mere things, at my age. After a lifetime of real losses. But the guys were kind, accustomed to these events, and brought me a serving bowl and platter that had not yet been packed. “You can keep these, Mrs. Kaulkin. To remember. We’ll find a place for them in your new home.”
And then I really cried.
And life goes on. Covid hit and Thanksgiving went on hiatus. One of my sisters moved to Portland, and Philo went off to college. Now, those of us remaining enjoy the holiday at a restaurant, where they feature prime rib, salmon and abundant vegetables, along with Sir Tom. And a good time is had by all.
“Thanksgiving” appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of Vistas & Byways.
The Dance of Love
Philadelphia was teen heaven in the 50s. A music Mecca.
Doo wop on the corner.
Bandstand after school. (Long before it moved to LA and became American Bandstand in living color, it was a Philly staple.)
We had the greatest disc jockeys in the world: Georgie Woods, the man with the goods; Jerry Blavat, the geator with the heater; and my personal favorite, Jock-O — “Oo-poppa-doo, how do you do.”
On Saturdays, radio station 950 held a dance club.
That’s where I met Virgil.
Danny and the Juniors sang “At the Hop” right there, in the studio, and we bopped and screamed.
Then the DJ played a slow one: “All in the Game,” by Tommy Edwards.
A handsome, broad-shouldered boy led me to the dance floor. He held me close. Very close. And whispered the lyrics into my ear.
“Then he’ll kiss your lips
And caress your waiting fingertips
And your hearts will fly away”
I felt warm and all aflutter. No one had ever held me like that. I was frightened. Thrilled. Overcome.
He led me to a table and got us a couple of Cokes. “What’s your name?” “What school do you go to?” He wanted to know everything about me. And I wanted to know everything about him. It was like we were alone, in a room vibrating with kids doing The Slop and The Stroll.
Virgil was named for a Roman poet. He lived above his father’s pizzeria in South Philly. The opposite end of the earth from my neighborhood, where the boys I knew were named for their dead uncles: Izzie. Shlomo. Jake.
He gave me a napkin and a pen. “Write down your name and address. Tomorrow I’ll come over, after church.” I wrote, though I knew he was forbidden fruit. Taboo. Off-limits. But I was smitten.
The DJ was playing another slow one and we danced again:
“For your love
Oh I would do anything
I would do anything
For your love
For your kiss
Oh I would go anywhere”
We were besotted.
*******
Somehow, he found me. Via bus, subway, trolley, he landed on my doorstep and I pushed him toward the street before my parents could see who rang the bell.
We strolled along a nearby strip of shops that were vibrant six days a week, but dead as a door nail on Sunday, in the age of Blue Laws.
We couldn’t think of much to say. I was cold; he was thirsty. Then the clatter of a trolley sealed our fate. He hopped on and threw me a kiss.
“Bye, Donna.”
“Bye, Virgil.”
We never saw each other again. I was sad for a long time and finally told my Mother why.
“Don’t worry, honey,” she said. “You’ll know when the right one comes along.”
***
Fast forward.
It’s the 60s.
I’m doing the bossa nova at a club in Atlantic City with a blind date.
A tall, very tall, guy cuts in.
I crane my neck to smile up at his pretty face.
He’s a great dancer, whirling me around the room with supreme confidence.
The next day he drives me back to Philly in his red Catalina convertible.
The top is down; my hair is blowing in the breeze.
“Where’d you get that pretty name, Donna Brookman?”
“I’m named for my father’s mother, Dora; he calls me Dvoyala. And you?”
“I’m named for my father’s brother, my Uncle Moishe.”
Click.
I invite him in to meet my parents.
I marry him.
Blame it on the bossa nova. The dance of love.
“The Dance of Love” appeared in Winter 2023 Vistas & Byways.
The Used Violin
The son of impoverished refugees was given a used violin for his tenth birthday which he neither asked for nor wanted. 
After months of attempting to master the instrument, he came to believe that screeching discord would forever be the fruit of his labor. He could not make it resonate with beauty. His heart would never dance when he eyed the thing in its ragged case or plucked its weary strings. And, though always a gentle boy, in a fit of frustration one day he smashed the violin and hid the pieces in his closet.
“Where are you going?” his mother called, as he attempted a nonchalant exit from their little backyard, where she was hanging laundry. “You have to practice.”
Suddenly overcome with remorse, he couldn’t look at her, knowing that she had saved pennies from her tailor’s wages to finally purchase the object he had just destroyed, an object that had been lovingly handled by scores of boys before him.
He never played an instrument again, but he loved his mother dutifully evermore and upon the birth of his first child he purchased a piano as an homage to her. His children became musicians and at each recital, each concert he felt her presence, her pride and her forgiveness.
Where are those peaches?
Where are those peaches?
The ones whose juices dripped down my chin?
That clung to their pit, each crevice a gold mine for my pudgy, picky fingers.
Gone now, the way of the butter & egg man, the corner butcher and Chevrolet station wagons.
Not even the fruit stand at my farmer’s market has peaches that pleasure,
bring end-of-summer gratitude
before it all goes to sleet and slush and bone-cold weariness.
I turn to new-fangled heirloom tomatoes to quench my need.
Will they be remembered by my sons with wistful longing?
Riding the Waves
I remember when my bubby taught me to ride the waves
It’s a mechaye, she would say, Yiddish for pleasure
Laughing, holding my hands
I would forget the trouble at home and laugh with her
She knew ― most of her children had married badly
If you know what I mean
Her grandchildren consequently sad angry listless
On sleepovers she would give me a nickel and send me to the grocer across the alley to buy rolls for breakfast, crusty Kaiser rolls like the ones she’d loved in the old country
And I’d feel so grown up, so trustworthy and loved
Breakfast would be grand, slabs of butter on the bread, a hardboiled egg
Coffee for her
Milk from the icebox in the backyard for me
Sleepovers with my bubby, days at the beach with her
Were counterpoints to sorrow
Who knew they were preparing me for forgiveness
For rising above the past
Forging ahead to joy
Like riding the waves with an invisible hand
To prop me