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After 51 years of marriage, I still wouldn't dare claim all-knowledge. I have stuck with my own for a long time, and it continues to present enough twists, turns and drama to satisfy the need of any writer.
This holiday season, I look back on small events now half a century distant. They were not as exciting as the life the young Hamilton's lived, with a revolution still to be fought and won. However, like the Paul McCartney song, these days I often feel like a "relic of a distant age." So here's my little newlywed's story:
The first turkey I ever cooked was in 1964. I was a
young married, an ex-student, as was my husband. We were living in a dismal
basement apartment in NYC, whose front window looked out upon the back of the
building’s garbage cans. Needless to say, we kept the blinds closed. We shared
a bathroom with some elder ladies who we never saw, but who, no matter how
loudly I scrubbed the place after using it, would arrive soon after I'd left and
vigorously wash the entire bathroom all over again. I suppose I can’t blame them, for lots
of old people in the city lived in fear of their neighbors.
We’d managed to buy the turkey, a small one, although it
took some financial planning to get the cash together, as I didn’t have a job.
Only my husband, Chris, did. As a
nineteen year old with zero skills, it didn’t pay much and rent
took the lion's share. As for me, I’d left the hospital I’d been working in back in
Philadelphia and come to NYC in order to be with him. At the time, I was violently morning
sick—to the 9th degree. I mean, Rosemary, in Rosemary’s Baby, had
nothing on me! The only things I could reliably keep down were weird cravings:
green pea soup, grapefruit, and sardines. Anything else—upchuck! Maybe that’s why the invisible
ladies next door were so diligent about scrubbing our shared bathroom.
On the big day we cleaned up our turkey as I’d seen my
parents do, slapped it in a big bakeware pan that we’d found in the kitchen,
turned on the oven to 350 and then walked over to Broadway to see a little of
the Thanksgiving Day parade. We were so far uptown that there wasn’t much to
see, but there were bands and high school kids from out of town feeling really
proud of themselves, and people wrestling with a couple of balloons—my
favorite, Dino the dinosaur—being dragged about in the gusty wind. The other big
event for me was seeing Fess Parker of Davy Crocket fame, waving and smiling
from the back of an open car. Like a zillion children from my generation, he’d
been my hero back in the fourth grade. I’d wept while watching the Walt Disney show the
night “Davy” died at the Alamo.
Now that little girl's life seemed incredibly distant. Chris and I
looked at each other. We were married, pregnant and close to broke. Whether one
or either of us would ever get back to college—and how the heck we would manage
it--was still up in the air. Nobody’s parents were happy. With all this drama swirling, the parade, so very pointedly an
event for kids, got boring fast.
We turned and walked back through the wind and grimy uptown
streets to our little pad. When we got there, the place was redolent with roast
turkey and baked potatoes. The bird made snapping noises as the juice
splattered about inside the oven, casting a smoky pall around the kitchen. We
decided that this must mean it was cooked. Chris fetched it out, and lo and
behold, it was done, all crispy, juices running clear.
I was surprised because I was, for the first time in months and all of a sudden—genuinely hungry. It was quite a fine meal, our first Thanksgiving—meat, potatoes, squishy store bread and a freshly opened can of cranberry sauce. For a change, it went down and stayed there.
I was surprised because I was, for the first time in months and all of a sudden—genuinely hungry. It was quite a fine meal, our first Thanksgiving—meat, potatoes, squishy store bread and a freshly opened can of cranberry sauce. For a change, it went down and stayed there.
Who knew I’d be remembering it fifty-one years later?
A MASTER PASSION, the story of
Alexander Hamilton & Betsy Schuyler
Available in print and electronic versions:
