It’s country music time

We’re gonna head down that red dirt road tomorrow — the Pennsylvania Turnpike — for a boot-stomping Thanksgiving in the backwoods boonies of P.A., where men are men, women are women and children play with rifles before they learn how to read.

Of course you know I’m talking about holiday time with Iain’s family, where we drive up to great-grandma’s house and compare tractors and paintball guns, muck around at “the camp,” eat some home cookin’ and play some penny-ante poker.

Great-grandma’s house is a barn, renovated in the 1970s and once featured in a homes and gardens magazine. It has a great twirling staircase and lots of stuffed animals — the taxonomical variety, not the plush variety — and wood paneling and decorations featuring pheasants and squirrels. Hanging on the wall is a wooden family tree, with beads and blocks stenciled with the names of Grandma Millie’s sons and daughters-in-law and grand-children and their spouses.

I have not merited a bead yet. Maybe one day, but not yet.

Iain’s uncles, Lou’s brothers, are usually around, in flannel shirts and aviator glasses and mustaches. One uncle, with a ponytail down his back and several outstanding warrants in the county, stops in briefly. I’ve never spoken to him before and to be honest, I’m a tiny bit afraid of him. He shoots bears. For relaxation.

There are usually half a dozen children running around; I can’t keep up with their names, much less pin down their lineages. Which is a nice way of saying I don’t know who or whose they are. But they’ll give Owen someone to play with in addition to his first cousins, the brothers Steele, who will be there as well.

There’s always snow up there this time of year, blanketing the pickups, and Super Alert Weather Dopp PredictoCast is calling for, no shit, three feet of lake-effect snow. *gulp*

This is our first Thanksgiving back in boonietown since before Owen was born. I’m excited for him to meet his great-grandma Millie and scattered relations. I’m kind of sappily happy to take him up to the camp, which is a couple hundred acres of the ancestral homeland hidden deep within Amish country. He’ll be inheriting it many decades from now, long after the cherry trees we’re gonna plant have grown, just in time to log them all and rake in the big bucks. [It’s not a 401k, but it’s something].

Also, Grandma Millie cooks a kickass turkey dinner. I’m talkin’ country style. Full on lard. Dee-fucking-licious.

So battle the traffic we shall, with good ol’ Garth and Charlie and Johnny and Willie and Waylon and me. Wish us luck.

November 22, 2005 | Filed Under family unit

Comments

7 Responses to “It’s country music time”

JM on November 23rd, 2005 10:14 am

Ok, now I _have_ to know which boonietown part of PA you’re going to, since I’m from there!
michaela on November 23rd, 2005 11:05 am

that sounds like so much fun! hope you have a great time - drive safely and all that crap
Ali on November 23rd, 2005 12:30 pm

I’ll be going over the river & through the woods right towards the lake effect snow as well, to Erie. It’s nice to visit the snow, but I’m glad I don’t have to live with that much anymore. Be safe & have a Happy Thanksgiving. Sounds like pleasant chaos. Remember when driving in the snow: Turn into the slide : )
ll#2 on November 23rd, 2005 2:54 pm

Have a Happy Turkey Day!
suburban misfit on November 25th, 2005 9:39 am

We’re not in the boonies, but we’re in The South. Tennessee. My parents moved here after retiring, after a brief stint in Florida, and boy. Is it ever The South.

I always feel even more misfitty here than at home, and that’s saying something!

Happy belated Thanksgiving!
Mama C-ta on November 25th, 2005 10:20 pm

Now that’s a Thanksgiving, yee haw. Hope you had a nice, relaxing time!
supa on November 26th, 2005 11:21 am

We’ll be right close to Erie, Ali — between there and Meadville, I think. Snow central.

I’m at my parents house now, y’all, but we did have a good time in Pittsburgh and NW PA. Owen has been charming the pants of off everybody, and I’m really loving all the quality family time.

My brother is playing the Trombone right now. And my coffee is getting cold.

So, hope you all had a fantastic Turkey Day as well! Shall return with more photos when we get back to Baltimore!