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November 17, 2005

Thanksgiving Eve: time to toast the past

By MIKE WOOD

Thanksgiving Eve has quietly grown to become one of the busiest bar nights of the year — be it college kids home on break looking to meet up with old friends or prodigal sons returning home a bit too early — they all head for their neighborhood bars, where happy owners pack them in like stuffing in a turkey.

The weird thing is that many of the bars we will flock to next week are the same places we once desperately avoided growing up. They were dives, boring places to be steered clear of since they were where our friend’s fathers (and father’s friends) hung out.

But somehow, without changing (or cleaning) a single thing, they will be transformed, for one night at least, into friendly, lively, homey places where everyone knows your name…or at least your face.

Which is how most of the night will be spent, naming names and figuring out faces for all the “friends� and acquaintances frequenting the bar. The lines of people will look vaguely familiar, but their receding hairlines, expanding waistlines, and fake tan lines will make it hard to be sure.

It wasn’t that long ago that you were good buddies, signing yearbooks and claiming to “Never forget the good times� and now you don’t even remember their names. To help with this, bring along someone you do know so that you can quiz them: Hey, isn’t that Freddie…or Frankie…or what’s his face? Oh my God, is that Sheila?

What the heck happened to Bob?

On the other hand, people you once passed by in the high-school halls without so much as a nod will be recognizing and hugging you like long lost friends. And who knows, maybe they are! So just to be safe, you’ll give them the hearty “Hey, how’s it going? Good? Good!� greeting and maybe raise your glass in a toasting motion. And then hope to God they continue on their way, for you will have absolutely nothing else to talk about.

But they usually stick around, at least for a couple rounds of “Name That Dude,� where the two of you, lacking any real connection, will spend a few moments naming all of the people you once commonly knew. So, you still hang out with Greg? Seen Jerry around? How about Gina? Once you run out of names, a few moments of uncomfortable silence will follow, where you’ll both nod and smile insincerely at each other with a “Isn’t this great, the whole gang’s together!� attitude until one of you sees someone (anyone) else to go talk to.

And if you are lucky, that “someone else� might actually be a person you not only recognize, but are truly happy to see. Unfortunately, it will be too loud and crowded to carry on any type of real conversation, so you’ll settle for the quick catch-up, covering the past five years in all of five seconds before reverting back to the old nod and smile.

You: “Hey, how have you been? It’s been years since I saw you last! What’s new?�
Them: “Not much, how about you?�
You: “Ah, you know, the usual…�
Them: “Yeah, me too.�
Commence nodding and smiling. Never mind that during that five years, one or both of you could have been married, divorced, hired, fired, jailed, bailed, promoted, demoted, and so forth — all of your highs, lows, and in-betweens will be summed up with a simple “not much� and “the usual.�
And maybe that is what’s so appealing about Thanksgiving Eve — that no matter what has passed … all the hardships and dramas and tragedies that have played out over the past year (or years) will become “not much� and “the usual.� And that truly is something to be thankful for.

So whatever your Thanksgiving plans, try to spend a few hours the night before down at the neighborhood bar. Time with the family is great, but it’s also nice to hang out with a roomful of “friends� who don’t really care who you’ve become or what you’ve been doing. Most are just happy to know your name — and maybe buy a round of drinks that you can raise together in recognition of just how truly great it is that the whole gang is together.

Posted by getout on November 17, 2005 11:56 AM