This Just In – It’s all on the record.
Many years ago, Garrison Keillor said that for a writer, there are no bad experiences. My response at that time was that clearly Keillor never had knee surgery.
Recently, I re-watched a wonderful documentary about the great writer Nora Ephron. One of her famous quotes and the title of the documentary is “Everything is Copy.” Simply put, it means that when you have a writer in your family every ridiculous and sometimes dramatic thing that happens in your family could turn up on the page somewhere in a not-necessarily-fictionalized story.
In Ephron’s case it meant that we got some terrific movies to watch perhaps at the expense of her family’s privacy. Some of the cost of this is explained in the documentary (written and directed by Ephron’s son, Jacob Bernstein) as her sisters talk about the struggle to take care of their aging father – all of which is dramatized in the movie “Hanging Up.”
At Thanksgiving, many of us have stories of family incidents that we look at (perhaps not in the IMMEDIATE time frame) and wonder if we’ve landed in a movie plot.
A few years ago, a family reunion of mine over Thanksgiving resulted in my posting a photo of the Chapel Hill Police Department showing up in the parking lot at Chapel Hill’s most iconic hotel to cool down a family dispute. The officers were great – very helpful at de-escalating the situation and everybody walked away without a formal record of a police incident. Win-win.
I write about my family often in this space and of course I wouldn’t want to embarrass anyone, but I do have to describe my own Thanksgiving crash and burn.
The year was 1978. Rick and I were newlyweds. I made one of my first apple pies. After the meal, I presented my new husband with a generous slice of this pretty delicious looking pie. He loaded his fork and shoveled it in.
Then, he looked for a moment like he had just finished sucking on a lemon. Puckered. Squinting. SUFFERING.
My mother’s pie crust recipe is delightfully simple and almost foolproof. One must, however, follow the recipe. It turns out, the difference between a TEASPOON of salt and a TABLESPOON of salt is, well, a BIG difference.
We love each other. We TRIED to eat this pie. We just could not do it. To toss more than half of an apple pie in the trash – ugh. Brutal.
That’s one of the reasons I usually make three pies for the big day – apple, pumpkin and pecan. One of them is bound to be edible.
As to the drama that sometimes appears when families assemble in an enclosed space, I hope it’s a joyful thing for all of you, whatever your traditions and family stories may be. The pandemic gave us all a taste of what missing out on a big scale feels like and how much we need each other – in the flesh.
So, if the turkey is a little dry, add more gravy. Remember the dinner rolls (if you put them in the oven to warm). Be kind to your host. Be kind to each other. Give thanks. Remember – it’s all copy. Somebody might be taking notes.
Then, let’s go Heels (tomorrow)! Beat State!!
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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