On Thanksgiving Day my family gathers around the dining room table for a celebration of joy. Before carving turkey and eating cranberries, we join hands and say what we're thankful for.
My son, who majored in English, is succinct: "Thanks for good food on this symbolic day."
My daughter, who recently moved back from Florida to join her mom's dance studio, also says much with little: "Thanks for home."
My wife follows their lead: "Thanks for family."
My turn comes, and my kids and wife groan.
"Dad, please, we're hungry," says my daughter, her eyes rolling as they did all through high school.
Yeah, it's true. I use this time each year to air out some love, including for people with whom I've sparred. Everybody just has to deal with it.
"I just want to address a few people who this year deserve props for being outstanding. Just give me a minute," I say.
Steam drifts from the food beautifully displayed on our black wooden dining room table. Candles flicker shadows on the walls behind a buffet crowded with serving dishes.
"C'mon, dad," pleads my son. "Go fast."
"Yeah, no problem. First, of course, there's God. On behalf of all Republicans in Ohio and America, thank you for dumping driving rain across the state on Nov. 2, from Cleveland to Cincinnati, from early morning until just after the polls closed. Your power held down turnout in poor communities where people often travel on public buses to polling places miles from their homes. But thanks for giving Republican suburbanites warm, dry SUVs, Gore Tex jackets and the freedom to illegally park just feet from polling places so they could hop through a few puddles in feet dry with Totes boots. You gave America to George Bush and kept liberty on the march."
"Oh, please," mumbles my daughter.
"Hold on. And another thing. Thank you for Republican Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen. Not since I studied literature with Father Savage at Xavier University have I seen the concept of the tragic flaw so featured. Macbeth had vaulting ambition. Willy Loman, as the character Biff put it, 'didn't know who he was.' Mike Allen, though, had a runaway penis. What fun it was to see him fall so far so fast on a sin he chided Bill Clinton for committing."
"Jene, stop," barks my wife.
"OK, I didn't say that well. But thanks, Mike, Rebecca and Mike's wife, the judge. Oh, and thanks to that older guy that Mike says in his lawsuit Rebecca was banging, the one who worked in television news in Cincinnati. Thanks, all you guys, for helping frame Cincinnati's conservative hypocrisy in language we can all understand.
"And I speak for prosecutor elect Joe Deters when I say thanks, Hamilton County voters, for helping Joe duck back down into Hamilton County to clean the dirt off his image so he can run for Ohio Attorney General in 2006. Your time with Joe will be short, but he will use you to the fullest."
"Great, dad," my daughter says. "Now politics is done. The food is chilling. Let's ..."
"No, just one more thing," I say. "Congressman Rob Portman."
"How does he come up?" asks my wife, more to herself than to me.
"How do you carve a bird on this joyous day without being thankful for him?" I answer. "But don't dwell on that old memory of the Cincinnati Business Committee pushing aside an angry Ken Blackwell years ago so Portman, an unknown neophyte, could get an instant free spot in Congress, replacing resigning Willis Gradison. Instead, work up an appetite on this day by focusing on the future. Follow along as Joe Deters goes to the prosecutor's office. The current lieutenant governor, who nobody can name, goes to Deters' Ohio Treasurer's office. Portman leaves the 2nd District House seat and becomes lieutenant governor for about a minute. Gov. Bob Taft quits to become Peace Corps director for President Bush. Portman becomes governor of Ohio, giving the Republican Party what they thinks is their best candidate to beat back the Democrats, who will charge that they've turned Ohio into hot mess. So thanks to the Ohio Republican Party for thinking up such a cynical game of musical chairs."
"Let's eat," pleads my son.
"Yes, good idea," I echo. "Just one more thanks."
"Why did I marry this guy?" says my wife rudely.
"That run we had at Xavier last spring," I say.
"Huh?" says my daughter. "Now you're on that?"
"Thank you for the drama of going from 10-9 at mid-season and landing in the Elite Eight in April. Cutting down Dayton's nets on their own floor in the A-10 Tournament — that was awesome. And then getting two guys into the league."
"OK, now I'm down with this," says my son, who started following the Muskies with me when he could barely talk.
"Yeah, and Huggins," I spit. "We own his ass. He's got a losing record against us. We've got more guys in the NBA than him. And all of our guys graduate. All of them."
"Jene," says my wife. "It's Thanksgiving. You've got to get control of yourself!"
She's right. What started as kind of a family prayer was turning into a screed on a psychiatrist's couch. One wonders what kind of personality would do this.
"Mom, can we re-cook the food?" my daughter says, carrying plates back to the kitchen.
"Sure. Let's get things into the microwave."
"Hey," I say to my son. "Let's check some basketball scores on the tube. Hey, let us know when dinner's ready!"
PUTTIN' OUT THE BONE appears monthly.
