Donna Gwinnell Lambo-Weidner

Same place, different holiday, but you get the idea. ca. 1972

Once upon a Thanksgiving Day, the only room large enough to host the Lambo family was in my grand-parents basement that had been fitted with a second kitchen just for such occasions. The oblong, wood-panelled room sported a bar at the far end fashioned from the same panelling that covered the cinder-block walls. Its red speckled linoleum top ran just about the width of the room under a casement window that looked onto the shrub lined cement driveway.

A few cousins, my younger sister, and I often played behind the bar, rummaging through an assorted collection of treasures—pirate ship embossed coasters, gold-rimmed wine glasses, wrinkled sepia photos of the old country, and glass cocktail stirrers topped with fruits, animals, and, close your eyes now, slim naked women.