Thanksgiving2025

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Guest

Or

Pest

“… we’d sing and dance forever and a day; we’d lived the life we choose , we’d fight and never lose, those were the days, oh yes, those were the days.” Mary Hopkin

        In the late seventies, I used to frequent a saloon on Grant Street in San Francisco’s North Beach; fittingly, the joint’s name was The Lost and Found Club. The kind of place where everybody doesn’t know your name.

        Z. Z. Top on the box, you drank until last call, maybe go home with a stranger; the main lighting was either from the juke box or the faux Tiffany lamps over the pool tables. Very rarely was there any trouble (unlike other joints on the street at that time); you know, old school serious. The kind of place where everyone was hiding out and no one was looking for them.

        At odds one Thanksgiving, I slouched my way hence to find the place lit up like a prison break. There were sheets of plywood on the pool tables and I surmised that possibly there was a renovation or crime scene in progress, but, seeing as I was being waved in, in I went.

        Gathered around the bar, the usual suspects were at their usual places on their usual barstools, swizzle stick legs and all; crooked smiles were forming as tablecloths were draped on the plywood and food began appearing from… wherever, until a beggar’s banquet was laid for those of us that are simply known as The Holiday Orphans. We ate, we grinned, we bought eachother’s drinks and tipped hugely; feeling like a family for one fleeting gustatory moment, we went our separate smiling ways.

        Nothing fancy; you know, the prerequisite turkey, dressing, sweet and Irish potatoes, a veg or two, gravy, cranberry and those obligatory brown and serve rolls. There could have been a pie or two, maybe a salad; I’m not really remembering it all. It was all pot luck, and began (unbeknownst to me)as a task, a request and  an assignment to the regulars, by the bartender, to bring a certain holiday meal component and show up for the giving of collective thanks, (and, who ever could refuse their bartender a directive?). If you know the story of Stone Soup, it was kinda like that. The bird was supplied by the bar.

        It’s not all fun and games for all of us on the holidays; especially if you’re in the service industry. Many of us have had to work those special times when those times are special to everyone but us. We give the roses out on Mother’s Day brunch; we dress up for your Halloween night out; we serve Easter, Christmas, Carnival and yes, we’re there when you decide that someone else will cook (and serve) the turkey on Thanksgiving.

        Not everybody who works in a service oriented town, such as we are here in New Orleans, has a family in stone’s throw of their living arrangements; generally speaking in a bar or restaurant, the people that you work with become your family. These establishments are fast paced, close quartered and semi-unpredictable in atmosphere; the unexpected circumstance is perpetually expected. You become close knit; you have a lot in common (IYKYK).

        Tending bar can be a lonely gig unless you’re either part of the rest of the ‘family’ and/or make working relationships with your customers, the more regular the better; “Mercy, mercy, mister Percy, there ain’t nothin’ back in Jersey; just the broken down jalopy of the man I left behind” (Tom Waits).

        So, what do you do when the rest of the world is gathered around a communal table of siblings, parents and relatives by the dozens celebrating a holiday that you’re spending at work, mixing up another Sazerac cocktail or delivering complimentary bread pudding to strangers polishing off a gut busting holiday table d’hôte?   

        Maybe you work in an office tower or at an auto parts store, health facility or middle school; maybe you ‘go home’ for the holidays, perhaps you are that customer out with Mom, Aunt Grace and Cousin Ralph at the casino buffet. Good on ya, Mate. However, there is a tradition for service workers (and other Holiday Orphans) and it happens just like it did at the Lost and Found in San Francisco.

        Your coworker comes up and asks you what you are doing for insert holiday here; you say you have no plans except ones concerning adult beverages and binge watching reruns of M*A*S*H*; and they say; let’s get the gang together,  go over to Alice’s (she’s got a big place with roomies to boot) and have a pot luck, I’ll bring my famous string bean casserole and we’ll get everyone to bring something and feast and gab and have a holiday!

        Or your bartender says “Listen, we’re having a potluck here for insert holiday (or saints game) here, you in? I need someone to bring a salad.”  If you’re lucky, chances are that you may have given or gotten this kind of invitation; it means that you’ve got friends, whether you want them or not, you are, in essence, made.

        I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that I can go out this Thanksgiving and find at least half a dozen pot lucks that I or any other Holiday Orphan would be welcome at; I’ve been to a few, in fact, I’m gonna call The Golden Lantern to see if they need a salad.