An Alternative to Norman Rockwell

What if Norman Rockwell deviated from his gentle depiction of family life? Painted the opposite of the idyllic, innocent life he depicts, such as in his iconic 1943 Freedom from Want, depicting a happy Thanksgiving meal. My family painting would reveal an alternative perspective.

Mom

The turkey queen, at least in her own mind. The truth is, she never figured out that cook thoroughly did not mean serving up turkey jerky. She insisted on scorching all bacteria, also known as taste, so we would not die of food poisoning. She once grilled hot dogs, so charred they were hollow inside. I understand now why I always caught my dad at Cinnabon in the mall. Mom believed in food diversity and forced the rest of us to adopt cultural appreciation via our stomachs.

She was especially fond of serving Gethsemani cheese, made by Trappist monks. It tastes like I imagine a construction worker’s dirty socks would, after a hot, humid day. Pungent doesn’t pack the descriptive power of this nasty cheese. If the painting could capture the moment you ate a piece of Gethsemani cheese, it might resemble The Scream by Edvard Munch.

My husband asked me how it tasted. My response was “Well, it doesn’t taste as bad as it smells.” It is important to know, it smelled like the outhouse at a chili-eating festival.

He took a bite and gagged, yelling at me, “Why didn’t you tell me it tastes like crap?”

“I don’t know what crap tastes like. Dirty socks smell disgusting, but I wouldn’t put one in my mouth.” He never listens to me anyway. Tactile learning is best for him.

Limburger cheese, Braunschweiger, and liverwurst were also on the table. Either everyone eats that stuff, or no one does, because talking to someone afterwards could melt their face. Thankfully, there was never enough food to feed 30 people, because Mom only made sides that fit the serving dishes she had.

She would be the one in our painting, slumped in her chair, having an out-of-body experience, wondering how she ended up being the matriarch of this family.

Dad

He doesn’t care. He eats everything in front of him because it is food. He once went through a buffet line, knocking over the lit chafing burner, setting the tablecloth on fire, and continuing through the line, filling his plate. Oblivious. If we left him alone, we would find empty sardine cans, a trail of M&Ms, chocolate fingerprints everywhere, and half-empty martini cocktails on every table.

He was a man who focused on the job at hand. If eating were the job, nothing interfered with it. At a family reunion on my uncle’s farm, the food tables were set up in the garage, some distance from the barn. The pig pen on the other side of the barn could not compete with the buffet of homemade deliciousness. The swarm of flies was almost biblical in nature. They had their own family reunion on top of every dish. I wouldn’t touch any of it. My dad battled them with every bite, simultaneously swatting them off his plate.

Dad was smart but had no sense of body awareness. He didn’t just reach for the gravy on the table; he dragged his arm through the mashed potatoes and butter dish on the way.

I once followed a trail of bright red streaks around my kitchen, thinking someone had cut themselves. No. It was Dad, cluelessly marking his spot with the sleeve of his sweater, which he had dragged through the graduation cake icing while cutting a slice.

If he noticed food on his shirt, he just sucked it off. We once played, name the stain with one of his old shirts. I wonder if Norman would capture that in a painting.

In our painting, he is the old guy slumped in his chair, sound asleep at the table because he drank the whiskey my sister brought over to make a whiskey cake. Mom is staring angrily at him.

Kevin

My younger brother. He would tell you there is no evidence of turkey being served in 1621 at the first Pilgrim meal with the indigenous Wampanoag natives in Plymouth County, aka the first Thanksgiving. It was a duck or goose.

He would tell you that a young female turkey is a jenny and that I named my daughter after a turkey. And also, Abe Lincoln, our fifth cousin twelve times removed, declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1833. Kevin would be the guy in the painting, fact-checking the history of green bean casserole in case someone mentions it. He is on the spectrum and knows this about himself, though it doesn’t stop him.

Kevin loves to cook. Trial and error are a part of creating fancy dishes. He is mostly error. Dad is the only one who will eat his creations. He brought homemade honey pie to a family meal that we couldn’t get out of the pan, and it was as sticky as industrial glue. He made peanut brittle that broke your teeth.

I don’t feel sorry for him. I would not put it past him to bring inedible food just because he thinks it is funny. Either that or he is more like my mom than I thought.

Kevin routinely bakes his own bread, which I suspect he sells to construction companies to build brick homes. We love him, even if he thinks acid rain can change our gender.

Eric

My youngest brother is a high school band director. In our painting, he would be sitting near the young adults, talking about his idea for inventing a sex swing for couples with knee problems. Very inappropriate, but funny because he is a hand-talker. The gestures are hilarious. The painting would show everyone around him staring in shocked bewilderment as he explained his ideas.

“Stop talking Eric!” I warned. “Dad might want to invest in your sex swing idea.”

It’s never a smart idea to dance with the devil where money is concerned. My Dad is a fixer, but it comes with a price.

“Remember when you complained about your car before going to Jamaica on a band trip? You came home to find Dad had sold that car and bought you a sexy, used K-car without your permission. Or the time when he replaced all your tires as a birthday present, then gave you six months of payment stubs? What about the stereo system for Christmas? He blindsided you with the credit card statement the following month.

Tom

My husband. His chair in the painting would be empty because he always comes down with some vague GI issue when there is a family gathering. You might see him peeking around the corner, listening to see if the coast is clear. He would be on his phone, googling tips on How to Avoid your Wife’s Family and Not Get Divorced.

He came from a smaller family, so our loud, boisterous family dinners sent him into full-blown panic mode. He doesn’t know how to respond to a Kevin who blurts out whatever thoughts are skipping through his brain.

“Tom, I really thought you would be dead by now, given your family history,” was his most recent rudeness.

I would say that my family saved Tom’s life. He has taken to walking endlessly as a “fitness goal,” but I know him. He is escaping into the woods every chance he gets. I don’t blame him sometimes.

Jenny

My daughter. Her siblings claim her parents were Hitler and Hazel, a character who played a maid in a 1961 television show. Jenny is a demanding clean freak. She once used the dustbuster on my dad’s shirt while he was eating chocolate cake, as he sat on her white couch. She is not allowed to help cook because she dumped out cake batter and washed the pan while my niece was trying to bake the cake.

In our painting, she is grabbing your plate mid-bite and taking it to the kitchen.

Carol

My youngest sister. We like to call her Dr. Laura. If you are sitting near her, by the end of the meal, you will find out you either have ADHD or some other psychiatric malady. She only wants to fix you, just like Dad. Carol would be depicted in the painting, holding up her phone, showing you how your list of symptoms aligns with her diagnosis.

I love her dearly, but she and I are like oil and water about politics and religion. Despite our best efforts, we occasionally fall into heated debates. One of us usually ends up crying.

After one such discussion during a sister’s weekend trip, I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night when she unplugged my C-PAP machine, “accidentally.”

Gasping for air, I sat up and tore my mask off, right as she flipped on the 100W light between our beds, “looking for my phone charger.” Norman couldn’t possibly capture the passive-aggressive gene some of us carry.

Rose woke up and asked what was happening. “Carol’s trying to kill me. I muttered.

“Oh, ok.” She mumbled and went right back to sleep. Nothing new to see here.

Jim

Carol’s husband loves to egg on political and religious discussions. I’m on to him. He does it for sport. He’s the guy in the painting giving an evil, side-eyed grin to the artist as he sits back to watch the fireworks he just lit up.

Rose

My younger sister. In the painting, she grins at Carol like the Cheshire Cat, a secret gleam in her eyes. I hope Carol is talking about jewelry, for her sake.

If you say anything to Rose that resonates as funny or embarrassing about yourself, you will inevitably get a package in the mail the following month. It will be unmistakably related to that conversation. I got a brown hoodie once, after taking care of my mother, who broke her knee, then came down with a bad case of diarrhea. I can’t wear it outside because she sewed a poop emoji on the front. I love how warm and snug it is, but people will assume something dumb, because these days, you can identify as anything.

Greg

My oldest brother. He is a wise man and a rule follower. A former Eagle Scout. Dudley Doo Right on a bicycle, in his younger days. He once went around our flooded neighborhood, unclogging the sewer drains so the school bus could get through. Everyone wanted to beat him up that year, including me. He is the one in the painting who looks normal, calmly eating his meal. What is wrong with him?

Cathy

Greg’s wife. A kind soul and the newest in-law to the family. In the painting, she is simply smiling. A bit of a plastered-on, frozen expression that might be hiding shock and awe. Her eyes emote understanding, as in “Now I see why Greg avoids all in-depth discussion about anything remotely sensitive. It's not me, it’s them!”

Chery

My older sister by two years. She was a military spouse for many years, driven by proper protocol. The table in the painting will show massive amounts of plates, cutlery, and stemware for EACH person, thanks to her. She finds it very confusing when we drink water from a wine glass or use the salad fork for the whole meal. In the painting, she is drinking wine while counting the forks and spoons in her place setting. We always assign her to do the dishes.

Mac

My brother-in-law and Chery’s husband. A retired high-ranking Naval officer. He is a wine connoisseur, gourmet cook, financial wizard, and well-connected in his industry. I suspect he feels like our family meals are akin to torture in a POW camp.

I get the biggest kick out of him trying to eat the dried turkey when he is well known for eating beef so rare that it moos when he takes a bite. He is the one in the painting staring in stunned disbelief at his plate.

He is a good guy, but a bit of a misogynist when it comes to helping with the dishes after any meal. You would think there was an enemy sub lurking beneath the dishwater, but it’s really about gender roles with him. A real man does not do dishes, even if he uses every pot, pan, and utensil in the house when he cooks.

I don’t know if he is aware of how he tends to put women in their place, but I would like to remind him a woman gave birth to him and the fact that he isn’t walking around in a poopy diaper and can cut his own raw steak, is solely due to a woman.

Me

I tend to look at things clinically. I am a nurse, so I tend to assess all sides. I’m a mix of mom and dad that, in my own mind at least, balances craziness. But there is that saying, crazy people don’t know they are crazy.

In the painting, I’m the one looking at the artist with a mouthful of food. Rolling my eyes, after yet another reminder to everyone that it’s not the tryptophan in the turkey that is making us all sleepy, it’s the massive overload of starchy carbs.

Why can’t these people understand glycolysis, which breaks down glucose into smaller molecules, and the Krebs cycle which involves a series of enzyme-catalyzed reactions that reduce the acetyl portion of acetyl coenzyme A in the mitochondrial matrix? I am hoping the diabetics in the family brought enough insulin.

At every gathering, I inevitably hear about someone’s bowel trouble. I am thinking of making educational pamphlets to put at each place-setting, reminding them that constipation is not fatal and to eat more fiber. Mostly, to not call me with gross descriptions of their waste.

I once recommended an over-the-counter product for this ailment, but the person in question didn’t listen closely. She ended up giving herself a massive bowel prep, like they do for colonoscopies, for no good reason. She sounded a bit angry on the phone.

I might add that this is the same person who asked me how to give herself an injectable medication prescribed by her doctor. I showed her how to cleanse with alcohol, draw air into the syringe, then inject it into the vial first to create a pressure gradient. I didn’t think it was necessary to tell her that you turn the vial upside down and pull back the plunger with the exact dose when it’s time to take the shot. I thought that was patently obvious. It was not. She gave herself air injections for several weeks, until she noticed the amount in the vial never changed. My fault for assuming.

The Young Ones

I won’t even go into what’s happening at the kids' table but given that my two adolescent grandsons were recently caught searching the internet for “boobs and vaginas” it isn’t hard to guess why they are laughing at the turkey neck one of them is holding up. Good thing they didn’t witness Mom stuffing the turkey. Norman Rockwell painted innocence, not sneaky boys trying to look at porn sites. They are lovable kids, but kind of gross right now.

The several cats, multiple dogs, and a rabbit wandering around, mostly under their tablet. Some are evidently support animals, the kids can’t leave at home. Really? All of them? No, they are just opportunistic, living vacuum cleaners who know where to get a free meal. At least there won’t be much to clean up later- under the table that is.

Everyone Else

There are over thirty people who could be present at our Holiday meal. Nieces, nephews, in-laws, and one neighbor my brother “accidentally” invites each year, who tries to guilt me into taking over as president of our HOA, all gather to celebrate. There isn’t a table or a house big enough these days. Rental halls are becoming a better option. Multiple topics, over-talking each other, elbowing, laughing, sometimes fighting, but always laughter – always that.

In the end, painting my family might be too much to ask of poor Norman Rockwell. It would be simpler to paint us as one big bowl of fruit. The variety and texture would capture our nature just as well.

I wouldn’t want anyone in my family to change who they are. They are fun and lovable and add much more flavor to life than any dried-up old turkey. Once a year at least.