Turkey by Taxi

In many families, conversations revolve around lore and tradition origins during the holidays. A couple of years ago at a family reunion meeting, I learned the whole, or at least more of the a story about a Thanksgiving turkey first told to me by my mother. When she told me the story early on, she just said a headless fowl chased her around the yard in Smeltertown.

For years, I only knew that some headless fowl had chased my mom around the yard after being beheaded. All these years later, and I still didn't know if it was a turkey or chicken, or for what event it had been slaughtered. Now she and my father were dead, and the story remained incomplete until one Sunday when I met with my two remaining uncles and many cousins at my cousin Gloria's house near El Paso High School. Towards the end of our meeting for our first ever Gonzalez family reunion, tio Roberto started explaining that one year there was a major labor strike against The American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO). Supposedly, it would last well into or even past November.

His brother Ricardo next explained that whenever abuelo came home with 50 pound bags each of beans and rice, there was sure to be a strike, a long one. During those times, they had meat only once a week. 

At end of summer, the strike began. As it continued past Halloween, everyone feared there would be no Thanksgiving dinner that year. No guajolote, no mole de guajolote, no big turkey drumsticks. Solomente frijoles y arroz y Kool-aid.

But just before the holiday, abuela took the bus and went "to town," by herself. She was emboldened to solve the problem of the Thanksgiving dinner for her 12 children. Usually, she never left Esmelda. Instead, everyone came to Esmelda to see her. This left my mother the eldest, and her siblings wondering what the woman was doing. 

Later that afternoon, abuela pulled up in a taxi with ...a live turkey! Apparently, she crossed the bridge into Cd. Juárez for the fowl and rode back across the bridge to El Paso, and then La Esmelda in the taxi. We don’t know how she did it, but she came back home with the turkey...in a taxi.

All that remained was to do the deed — chop the head off the fowl, which abuelo did. But, my mom had to hold the large bird down as abuelo swung the axe. His aim was true, but the turkey was not yet willing to call it a day. He ran around the yard chasing my screaming mother. There began the germ of her story to me — that some headless bird had chased my mother around their dusty yard.

In the end, abuela and her three daughters made tortillas, frijoles, and rice, stuffing, mole, ice tea with limes. Everyone enjoyed el cocono (guajolote) that year. Soon afterwards and before Christmas, the strike ended.

Lucille and the Royal

Sunday, November 4, was my mother-in-law Lucille’s birthday. She would have been 101. I say this because one of her proudest moments was how she lent a Royal like this to her neighbor. 

Mrs. V was in a bad marriage. Her husband ran around with other women and drank. Once, I was told, one of the women showed up in the middle of the night and threw rocks through all the windows in Mrs. V's house--evidently, her husband had called it off with the rock thrower. Fortunately, his abuse was never physical to her or her sons, and he held a job. Mrs. V felt she couldn’t leave him because of the mores of the day, and that she would receive no support for her sons and her. In short, she needed a job, but had no skills for a decent paying position. 

Having hauled the big black Royal typewriter halfway around the world and back, Lucille lent her friend the machine so that she could practice and get her typing speed up for a civil service position at Fort Bliss. I still hear Lucille telling us that there was some reason she held onto her father's typewriter. She concluded that this must have been the reason why.

So Lucille and Mrs. V worked together while the kids were in school. She taught her friend to know the ins and outs of typewritten communication. How to insert the paper, use carbon sheets, change ribbons, correct errors, and the like. She practiced, got her speed up, and took the civil service exam. She was hired. In fact, Mrs. V went on to have a great career, eventually becoming an administrator on post. And Lucille was left with knowing she helped a woman make a positive change for her and her family. To her dying day Mrs. V praised Lucille for the help and encouragement she gave.

Non nobis solum nati sumus.
   Not for ourselves alone are we born.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

Image sources: 

• Royal Typewriter 
• Lucille's photobooth collage

Cryptoquotes, matchbook covers, and where the puzzles went: A remembrance on the occasion of their son's birthday

In the garage on his workbench, Lucille stacked his to-dos. There were the crossword puzzles and cryptoquotes she saved for Stanley while he recovered from joint or pacemaker replacements. The saving stopped the morning after he went by ambulance to Sierra. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while his aide dressed and attended to his feet.

He loved a well-ordered garage and puzzles of all kinds. Lucille secured Family Circle and Better Homes and Gardens magazines tied with twine into neat bundles. The inside of the pantry door held neat paper bags saved from the commissary. The magazines were worthy of safekeeping because they contained interesting knitting patterns and recipes. Each side to the marriage reflected a life of service, whether to family, church, or country in an orderly way. His was of service in the Army, at work in telemetry at WSMR, and at the VFW hall having beers with his sons. He taught them how to care for the home and vehicles. He propagated geraniums for school fundraisers, and stood guard with fellow Knights of Columbus for the departed faithful (also known as the

"Knights of Columbo" by one particular granddaughter). Lucille’s service was keeping the home, sewing prom dresses, presiding as deanery president, baking for church and school fundraising bazaars, and crocheting and knitting afghans and sweaters that we all still use and wear. The warmth of Lucille's skills remains scattered across the Pacific to Hawaii, up north to Minnesota and Colorado, across the country to Brooklyn, with many remaining here in El Paso.

Next to the workbench on Skyline in Northeast El Paso, a funky pine nightstand once stood. The small chest had three deep drawers. One drawer held a plastic bag of matchbooks, acrylic 3-D puzzles popular during the 70s, a Rubric’s Cube™, and a small green cover with "Bridge"  embossed in gold script to hold score pads. The matchbooks were the kind restaurants and bars once given freely to customers. Another drawer held cassette tapes of Big Band music Stanley had recorded. He played the tapes on a small cassette player kept on top of the bench. Part of a bedroom set used by more than one child, the nightstand now sits, stripped of lavender paint, and next to a small teak desk in our bedroom. We kept one puzzle we liked best along with the often-solved Rubric's Cube™, and the matchbook collection. A favorite matchbook is from The Iron Tender where VED once worked. It was well-known for its steak soup. Before the steakhouse closed, a family friend appealed to the newspaper to reprint its recipe and that clipping how holds a place of honor on the kitchen bulletin board.

Recycled newspaper rubber bands help keep the clear acrylic puzzles fixed and complete until they dried out and failed. Elastic rubber band pieces collected at bottom of the drawer—short, pale green worms. Miraculously, the puzzles continued to remain solved and refused to fall apart in solidarity for the five years between their deaths. In one case, however, masking tape continues holding our favorite puzzle together—a diabolical apple. Except for the transparent fruit, all the puzzles went to the originally named Crisis Nursery for its thrift shop.

Founded by Mary Russell around 1977, I recall her first appeal for support. Since it was after Fr. Vonder Haar's sermon, it must have happened anytime excepting summer. That priest never could give sermons as he feigned an aversion to the heat for the parishioners. But we knew better—he being from a wealthy Philadelphia St. Louis family. He kept a large number of parakeets in the parish front office, and co-officiated my parent’s wedding at Cristo Rey in Smeltertown. He instructed, baptized, and confirmed my father.

But on that cool Sunday, morning after his sermon, Mrs. Russell began her appeal by explaining that there was a need in the community for a nursery. The need was both great and personal for her—a grandchild was blinded in one eye due to child abuse. She explained that a child crisis nursery acts as a go between for emergency after hours care, how the children and infants would be found and accepted into temporary care. She next asked for both monetary and volunteer help.

Blessed Sacrament Church and the diocese lent use of a house that had long been used for storage. It was around the corner nearer to the parish grade school. A standout memory was how an old donated buffet held diaper, baby bottle supplies, blankets, and onesies. I used to volunteer after mass on Sundays and initially took Michaela with me to play with the toddlers and babies being cared for over the weekend until they could be transferred to Child Protective Services. That was the case, until Mary told us that a recent child was found to have lice. Perhaps it would be best that we kept our children home while we volunteered, she suggested.

Since it first opened that year and thereafter to its new constructed facility on Stevens, it sadly has never gone vacant. However, children remain safe, and over time, many uninitiated parents have been allowed short respite. Mrs. Russell, as my in-laws and parents, were children of the Great Depression. In them was instilled the life of service, daily acts of faith, decency, and love for family and country.