I suppose it was around '62 or '63. I know that I was still in elementary school because of the way my Mom had fixed my hair that day. Thanksgiving Day at my Grandmother's. I had dreaded it since the plans were made a couple of weeks earlier.
Danny would be there.
Danny was my mean, unruly cousin whom I was terrified of. He always managed to bring chaos to any family gathering or simple visit. My Mom called him a "wild indian," but I suspect that under her breath and out of earshot of her children, she called him names that were unspeakable. One time his family came to our house, and it was like a scene out of Dennis the Menace. He got into our linen closet and took armfuls of our carefully folded bath towels, dumped them in the bathtub and turned on the water. That same night, he yanked our pots and pans from a low cupboard and heaved a skillet with all of his might to the floor, and broke the handle off of it. I thought my mom might cry right on the spot, but she just cleaned up the mess and announced that it was time for us to get ready for bed. Her way of saying that this evening had come to an end.
That Thanksgiving day I wore a navy blue pleated skirt, a light blue long sleeve sweater, and navy blue knee socks with the same light blue in a pattern that made its way up the sides of the socks. I buckled myself into my dark blue dress shoes and my long blonde pony tail held perfectly in place with a long matching silk ribbon. Knowing in advance that I would be stuck sitting at the kids table, I said a little prayer that Danny would be seated far away from me. That was not to be. As dinner got underway, my grandfather said Grace and the dishes mounded with food got passed around the table. I got saddled with helping the little kids fix their plates, while Danny messed with my ponytail. Before I knew it, he had smeared gravy on the ribbon and my hair and crawled underneath the table and jammed a gravy-soaked piece of dark meat into my sock. I kept whispering that I was going to "tell on him" but he didn't care one bit.
He finally got his when he attempted to flush a parkerhouse dinner roll down the toilet. The roll being the perfect circumferance of the plumbing caused a flood that spilled out into the hallway. I don't remember his punishment, but I was secretly glad that he got caught. Pumpkin and Mincement (yuck) Pie was served without further incident, while we all played Yahtzee.
Danny finally grew out of his outrageous behavior, but that was the last Thanksgiving my brothers and I had to put up with him. I sold him a foreclosed house that needed major repair a couple of years ago, and he turned it into a real jewel. Underneath all of his shenanigans, there was a good guy afterall. He might argue the exact details of that Thanksgiving, but can't escape that fact that we still talk about the flooding toilet to this day, and laugh when the rolls get passed around.