It’s almost Thanksgiving again. Which means, if you are going to have a turkey, that it must be carved. My dad, who is 92, is already reflecting on the art of carving a turkey. The older he gets, the more like a bulldog he is. He gets a hold of an idea and hangs on to it, shaking it back and forth, up and down, while the idea gets bigger and bigger. Usually, the idea holds imperfections of some sort which are magnified.
The turkey-carving idea started years ago. My husband carves the turkey, or his nephew Kent, or maybe our son-in-law Matt. In my dad’s mind, they are all one person and the carving job they do gets worse with each telling. During today’s visit we (he, really) talked about it again.
The conversation was precipitated by my sister asking Dad if he’d carve the turkey at her house this year. Bless her heart. Something he takes great pride in. But Cris, if you are reading this – do NOT let anyone take anything from the platter until Dad is completely finished and the platter has made it to the table in the grand old tradition of the Thanksgivings no one had. Because last year, someone started eating before the dark meat had been properly arranged.
The Thanksgiving no one had
Seriously, look at Grandma in that picture. She’s just placing that turkey in front of Gramp so he can do the manly job of carving, but who’s got the real strength? Grandma isn’t even breaking a sweat as she lightly places that 30-pounder in front of gramps.
George Bush had it right when he served turkey to the troops in Iraq.
Is it real, or is it Memorex?
That’s right, this was not a real turkey – it’s a cardboard picture of a turkey platter with a convincing curve in the middle. Because, really, who can stand there holding a turkey like that? It’s hard enough getting it out of the oven.
Because my father is an artist, carving a turkey is an art. Everything must be aesthetically pleasing. The white meat should be sliced in big, but thin, slices and fanned around the outside of the platter, which should be oval for the best impression. In a smaller inner circle, slices of dark meat taken from the thigh should be fanned out. I think a drumstick may go somewhere in this presentation, but I was not told and I did not ask. Perhaps I did not listen. But the platter must be just so, even if no one special is there to view it. It might look like this. Something similar anyhow.
To tell the truth, I’m a little tired of hearing about slicing a turkey. Carving a turkey. We’ve all been hearing about it for several years but it seems to have taken on the ferver of a crusade. Today, Mark/Kent/Matt – this person that has morphed together - got ripped to shreds for their turkey-carving skills. Their past efforts have been magnified to the point that they are larger-than-life. I don’t think the word “skills” figured into it because they don’t carve a turkey – they rip it to shreds. The description my dad was giving, and the ferver with which he told it, belonged in a horror movie. You got the impression of chunks of turkey being flung about the room as they were pulled from the carcass by some monster of devastation. My mind saw fangs shredding this meat as it landed on the platter. The dark meat never stood a chance. It’s a wonder the turkey wasn’t raw, such was the description of the melee that ensued when this morphed monster approached with the knife.
It may have ended up something like this.
Somehow, we survived this doomsday turkey carving and found the bird tasty and yummy. I don’t believe a one of us was lamenting the presentation of the meat. Take it back – there was one.
So today I listened – and believe me – I am not exaggerating. I AM wondering, trying to parse out this whole thing as if it were parts of a sentence that could be ordered. How to make order of an aging mind? Why are certain things rising to the surface over and over again, seemingly meaningless things like carving a turkey? What does it really mean? I don’t think that near the end of life, carving a turkey could be a big concern. What could it symbolize? Maybe being the best could be a concern. Had you been the best? Would others realize you had been the best? Have you appreciated the finer points in life? Fulfilled your duties as a family man adequately? Or better than adequately? Who the heck knows what carving the dang turkey really means. Dad probably doesn’t know.
But we listen. Again and again. Telling ourselves that we will be equally insufferable at times should we made it to 92. That our kids will go home saying, “I can’t believe she talked about that again. Why can’t she just let go of it? It’s not important anyhow.” And then they may contemplate the symbolism of a seemingly trivial matter.
Because we would really like carving the turkey, or whatever it is we are going to talk about over and over, to be symbolic of some deeper meaning and larger idea, not just the complaints of an old used-up person. Sometimes it’s better to live the fantasy than know the truth. Because a turkey, after all, is probably only a turkey.
