Festum Thursday

The lovely, kind but not long term Red.

Thanksgiving weekend is a big multi anniversary for me — not only was Tell Me A Story born on the Do Nothing and Definitely Don’t Go Shopping day after Festum Thursday, Thanksgiving day is when I left home for Boston. 34 years ago. (YES, this means I’m old as fuck!)

This was the big move into the future, my adulthood — I’d been kicked outta Texas after a few seasons with a traveling carnival, decided rural-ish Louisiana and being the moll of an offshore oil rig working dude (sweet as he was) just wasn’t my bag and could def NOT see living in my parents small town a second longer (mia madre wanted me to stay -- get my Masters degree, meet a nice Catholic boy and start pooping out bambinos — NO THANK YOU!).

This was sorta, kinda, in a hyperbole-ish but still very true way, the weekend of my genesis.

Why Boston? It's where the dart landed, more or less. Yes, that was a huge part of my Where To Now Saint Peter decision process.

I've written of my stop over in Western Pennsylvania in last year's anniversary post

I managed to find a drunken debauch or three and, what I thought would be, a farewell to western Pennsylvania fling. In post-sheet shaking kibbitz with my flingee, Sam, it somehow came up that my father was a math professor. 'What's your last name,' he asked. What a surprise — he’d just thumped thighs WITH HIS ADVISOR’S DAUGHTER.

Yes, uncomfortable hilarity kinda ensued.

Before boarding the northbound Greyhound on Thanksgiving evening, I’d rung up a high school pal who was attending MIT and asked:

‘Hey, remember you said that if I was ever in Boston, I was welcome to crash at your place? You gonna be around the day after Thanksgiving? Yes...tomorrow. My bus gets in at eight AM.’

Craig picked me up at the Station and toted me back to his old Independent Living Group — Epsilon Theta where we chilled and tucked into the leftovers from the previous day’s big spread.

Not only did Craig VERY graciously let me stay with him (at his off campus apartment) until I found a job and my own crib (two weeks and done!), he introduced me to all his buds. I remember nights where a bunch of us would be playing with Legos — the Thetans would invariably be building fully functioning helicopters, computers and wind turbines. Me? I was recreating Mondian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie  and Picasso’s Portrait of a Woman (yeah, that one was rough).

We found each other fascinating, fun and strange.

So, 34 years ago, I had a starter group of exotic buds, a job and my first wee flat. I’m still good friends with a few of my Lego chums.

How cool is that?!