By Jim Talone, Guest Blogger
Jim Talone is a retired English teacher who grew up in Ardmore in the 1950s.  Since retirement he has written a memoir and made a dozen historical documentary films which are available on Youtube.

Paper Turkey

Sister Brigetta, in her head-to-toe black outfit, towered over the 40 munchkins sitting on the floor in St. Colman’s kindergarten. We looked at her wide eyed. “ Listen up kids! Today for art class we are going to trace and paint a turkey.”

In the back of the room, I whispered to my best friend Bill, “What’s a turkey?”

He shrugged.  “I don no…  Be quiet and listen to sister.” 

All the girls were looking at sister and nodding their heads. They knew just what she was talking about.  Sister moved us into the room with tables and foot highchairs (the kind of chairs that if you sat on one today the fire department would have to be called to lift you out).

Sister had construction paper laid out, one sheet for each kid, and a big bin of worn-down crayons on each table.  On the black board she put her left hand flat with the fingers spread wide. “Now children put your left hand on the paper and take a crayon and trace around your fingers.”  That might have taken ten minutes as we tried to figure out which was our left and what the word ‘trace’ meant. Sister showed us how the thumb became the face of the turkey and where to put the feet.  Then she had us fill in the turkey with any color we wanted.  Rainbow turkeys abounded.  When I got mine home my second-grade sister sneered at it, but my mommy said my turkey was nice.  I look back on this as one of the great academic achievements of my early life.  

As the years passed the painted turkeys became a thing for the “little kids” to do.  Us big kids in third grade were beyond that.  My memories today are fragmented. We learned about the first thanksgiving when the Indians helped the pilgrims create a feast before many of the Indians died of smallpox or measles (but we didn’t learn that till years later) The thanksgiving concept was great, and I liked the image of log cabins, but what we were mostly thankful for in grade school was a two day holiday and a four day weekend.

  The Turkey Bowl

Today most childhood outings are organized and insured by adults but back in the fifties and sixties our traditions were widespread but only organized by the hazy oral tradition that had the third graders learning from the bigger kids in fifth grade.  There was plenty of room for as much of our own creativity as might exist in the mind of the smartest kid in our group . The turkey day football game was a tradition that lasted from the time we were 12 until we were old enough to realize that  a broken bone or a concussion was not a badge of honor.  On Thanksgiving morning while our moms and the woman folk were working in a steamy kitchen, all us ‘men’ dressed in our battle gear; Keds high top sneakers, grey sweat pants, two sweatshirts and a wool watch cap. Obeying some atavistic urge we didn’t understand, ten of us left our warm houses and stepped outside into the November air.  I stopped to take three deep breaths, pulling the cold air into my lungs. My Aunt Lenore assured us that we would never get a cold if we did that. We  hopped on our bicycles and headed over to South Ardmore Park.  Nearing the park someone in one of those houses was burning leaves and we got the heady smell that was so much a part of fall in the fifties. 

We knew to head to our little part of the park.  We knew that we were never allowed to play on lined fields, so we set up our own gridiron off to the side. We used what was at hand to mark the endzones and sidelines;jackets and hats worked well.  Our field was never a full 100 yards, but it was long enough and we made up our own rules and acted as our own referees.

We were all friends, so we tried to pick balanced teams.  We agreed to play two hand touch football and since neither side had anyone who could kick a ball straight, we had our best player throw the ball as far as he could for kick off. Let the game begin!  I typically played end, and with just 4 or 5 per team, we played both ways.  I like to pretend that I was Tommy McDonald racing down the field for a long pass.  I was never a great athlete, but I could run and I could catch a spiral coming to me out of a blue grey November sky.  What a great feeling that was to have that ball smack into my hands, wrap it up and pull it into my body as I crossed the goal line. Seven- nothing.  There were no low scoring games in our Turkey Bowls. 56 to 49 was a respectable score. Remember we had no clock and only gave up when someone was injured or we all had to go home for an early Thanksgiving dinner. 

Usually before the third touchdown was scored there would be a dispute. 

 “Touch down!”

“No way..! I touched you on the five.”

 “No you didn’t.!” 

“Yes I did!”  

“Well, if you are going to play that way I’ll make sure you are down next time”

The next time a ball carrier crossed the middle my buddy Bill tagged him by slamming his shoulder into the ball carrier’s belly and driving him into the ground.  No arguing there! The ball is down and what started as a friendly game or touch morphed into a tackle game. No helmets, no pad, and no brains, we played on. On the next set of downs I was surprised.  The other team had a smaller guy that I didn’t know. Rumor had it that he was on the Lower Merion freshman team.  I was playing linebacker and he came right at me. I had him cold.  I lowered my shoulder and drove it into his stomach… except I found myself falling forward instead. I turned my head and saw a blur going past me, heading for the endzone.  How did he do that?   Suddenly we were down by one touchdown.  A couple sets of downs later as we neared the goal line my brother Tom threw a perfect pass over the middle. I had it.  I was pulling it into my stomach when I ran into a brick wall. Instead of crossing the goal line I was on the ground looking at the sky. I had no idea where the ball was.  A fumble!

When I got up from that hit, my chest hurt but in true macho fashion I shook it off and the game continued. Hits were part of the game. Sometimes the best part. If you like to give it, you have to be able to take it.  We all took great pride in getting mud or grass stains on our pants, our shirts, even our faces.  All of our favorite Eagles would finish the game with grass and mud-stained uniforms.  The Pros only played an hour but it took us three hours or more of hard play to get mud and grass stains we could be proud of.

The afternoon and the game went on until the sky got darker and we knew we had to head home in time for Thanksgiving dinner.  We limped back to our bikes, stained, tired and very happy.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Turkey day was not for the faint of heart… nor for boys. In the morning Tom and I were allowed our Wheaties or Cheerios but then it was made clear to us that the kitchen was off limits to us till dinner.  I remember my mother hauling a 25-pound turkey out of the cold back room. It was white and unappetizing at that time. It was hard to find a turkey big enough to feed her 8 kids and assorted relatives and strangers who sat down to dinner with us. The turkey was so big that it took both Mom and Aunt Lenore to squeeze it into the oven.   I have a clear memory of a kitchen that seemed to be full of steam, and the smell of onion frying, mixed with just a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg that came from the apple pie baking in the oven. 

There was much bustling about as my Aunt Lenore helped and my sisters took over making the mashed potatoes, peas or one of the scores of foods we had only once a year..  When all the food was ready Dad would carry in the beautifully browned turkey.  He had a long thin carving knife that we were forbidden to touch, and he would spend ten minutes sharpening it before he wielded it with the skill of a surgeon, dropping perfectly cut slices of turkey onto the platter.  My family always had a crowd for dinner, but this was a special day with extra guests and every one of us cleaned up and dressed for church. 

Most of that great food was wasted on me as I would have preferred peanut butter and jelly for dinner.  Mom would insist that I try everything but mostly I filled my plate with three or four warm rolls with butter. I pushed the peas around the plate or hid them in the mashed potatoes and waited for the desert.  I was 18 years old before I tried cranberry sauce  and realized that it was sweet and good. By the time I was eating most of the food served, I concentrated on overeating as if it were an Olympic sport.  When I had cleaned my plate and gone back for seconds I ate some more and hoped for a good burp to make room for dessert. Half way through dinner I saw my father release his belt two stops. I learned that if you undid your belt two notches you could fit in a bit more dinner.   Pies were put out.  I loved mom’s apple pie but I also loved her lemon meringue pie.  It was a tough decision, so I had a piece of each.  I was so full I wasn’t sure I could stand.

While the girls were clearing the dishes (Mom ran a traditional home) Tom and I would sneak down to the basement where we had our 20-inch black and white TV.  We would lay on the rug, like slugs in a stupor and watch the Detroit Lions play the Chicago Bears. It seemed to me that it was always mid-west teams that played on Thanksgiving Day.  The audio was good which was fine as we were used to listening to radio, but the visuals were prehistoric compared to the 50 and 60 inch TVs of today.  I think there were only three cameras in all the stadium and replay had not been invented.  We had to squint at the fuzzy picture and hope the announcers were paying attention.  Our adolescent bellies were full and we lay back with contentment, thankful for the food we ate and the family upstairs.