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Laybuh Day
Aug. 20th, 2004 02:36 pmThe ultimate event of our summers in The Summer House was the annual Labour Day party. It was always held on the Saturday night of the weeekend, since about 1/3 of the house was leaving on Sunday to return to normal lives, work, school etc. The women in the house started cooking and prepping earlier in the week. Aunt Geri is famous for her Italian sausages. Aunt Berna makes killer macaroni salad. Ma’s potato salad is da bomb--a claim to the best potato anything in an Oirish family, well your shit’s gotta be pretty damned good. There’d also be vats of boiled hot dogs for the kids, plus burgers and other barbecued things for the teens and adults.
The Egan rubric--kid, teen, adult--is a powerful force. It determines what one does, when one does it, and whose permission is needed. Kids are essentially powerless, except over other kids--with about 35 kids in the house, the pecking order shite is complex (shockingly, gender is trumped by age--my sister is the 2nd oldest of our ilk and she ruled All But David, #1). Teens ruled all kids and some teens, and enjoyed a modicum of responsibility and agency. In fact, at the Summer House teens were expected to be clever enough to: 1.) not do anything stoopid; and 2.) not to get caught, if they do anything stoopid. Adults were to flex their power over all at will and on whim. Except when they were drunk. At the Labour Day party, everyone gets drunk. Including all the teens and about half the kids.
The party started in earnest around 6pm. Kids were fed, music and dancing started, and the mothers communicated non-verbally that they wanted to blow off some steam tonite and we’d better shovel in and move through quickly. By 730pm the kids were banished to the front patio (no one really minded), as the teens and adults ate on the porch. Dads wielded barbecue tongs, Mas slurped Tom Collins and smoked, it really was a festive, mirthful time. And the source of many great memories, as well as a strong generalized sense that Our Life ‘Twas Good. ‘Twas . . .
By 9pm the kids were banished to beds (though they were at windows and continually trying to sneak into the party), teens took over the patio and the adults shifted into serious party gear. By about age 15 our parents permitted a few beers on Labour Day, so long as we didn’t get messy. By 17 they didn’t care at all, so we could join the adult party (18 was the drinking age). When I was 17, a critical mass of cousins (about 8 of us) all made the move up to the front porch that same year.
We, of course, were sophisticates, and looked down our noses a keg beer. “Let’s drink something special” someone suggested. “Yeah, but what?” “How about . . . . Alabama Slammers!!!!” Woot!
A quick calculation--about 15 of us, a drink requiring several boozes, ice and mixing--meant a standard cocktail pitcher wouldn’t really be tenable. We were Oirish, so we didn’t own a punchbowl--and if we did, it’d’ve been used for potato salad no doubt--so the operational issue presented a challenge. For but a moment.
My brother Mike clapped his hands together and ran down the front porch steps, under the porch itself. He emerged with a medium-sized plastic garbage can. “Ew!!” chorused the girls (and me). “Nah, it’ll be perfect” said Mike. Who proceeded to hose out the can, soap and scrub it, and rinse it out. When we met his triumphant grin with icy stares, he paused, put the can down, and went back downstairs. And came up witha Hefty bag, which he proceeded to put in the bit and secure to the rim with duct tape (the Oirish tool kit, FYI, is a flathead screwdriver, a hammer, a pair of plyers and a roll of duct tape). Heads nodded in agreement: we had a consensus. Some were dispatched to the liquor store to buy copious amounts of Southern Comfort and Sloe Gin (and mixers) and ice. The rest of us placated ourselves with beer. The cauldron of Slammers was mixed, sampled and imbibed. There was much rejoicing!
The last thing I remembered was staggering away from the Summer House to make an early morning bacon cheeseburger deluxe run at our local diner. We pased a bank clock that said 350am. I can’t be sure what happened next, but I came to on the IRT subway in Brooklyn a couple of hours later. By myself. In Brownsville, a significantly unsavoury party of The City. By the time I got back to Rockaway the sun was up and I had already persuaded myself that my terrifying coming to was, in fact, an interesting misadventure and great story to share with everyone else.
The Egan rubric--kid, teen, adult--is a powerful force. It determines what one does, when one does it, and whose permission is needed. Kids are essentially powerless, except over other kids--with about 35 kids in the house, the pecking order shite is complex (shockingly, gender is trumped by age--my sister is the 2nd oldest of our ilk and she ruled All But David, #1). Teens ruled all kids and some teens, and enjoyed a modicum of responsibility and agency. In fact, at the Summer House teens were expected to be clever enough to: 1.) not do anything stoopid; and 2.) not to get caught, if they do anything stoopid. Adults were to flex their power over all at will and on whim. Except when they were drunk. At the Labo
The party started in earnest around 6pm. Kids were fed, music and dancing started, and the mothers communicated non-verbally that they wanted to blow off some steam tonite and we’d better shovel in and move through quickly. By 730pm the kids were banished to the front patio (no one really minded), as the teens and adults ate on the porch. Dads wielded barbecue tongs, Mas slurped Tom Collins and smoked, it really was a festive, mirthful time. And the source of many great memories, as well as a strong generalized sense that Our Life ‘Twas Good. ‘Twas . . .
By 9pm the kids were banished to beds (though they were at windows and continually trying to sneak into the party), teens took over the patio and the adults shifted into serious party gear. By about age 15 our parents permitted a few beers on Labo
We, of course, were sophisticates, and looked down our noses a keg beer. “Let’s drink something special” someone suggested. “Yeah, but what?” “How about . . . . Alabama Slammers!!!!” Woot!
A quick calculation--about 15 of us, a drink requiring several boozes, ice and mixing--meant a standard cocktail pitcher wouldn’t really be tenable. We were Oirish, so we didn’t own a punchbowl--and if we did, it’d’ve been used for potato salad no doubt--so the operational issue presented a challenge. For but a moment.
My brother Mike clapped his hands together and ran down the front porch steps, under the porch itself. He emerged with a medium-sized plastic garbage can. “Ew!!” chorused the girls (and me). “Nah, it’ll be perfect” said Mike. Who proceeded to hose out the can, soap and scrub it, and rinse it out. When we met his triumphant grin with icy stares, he paused, put the can down, and went back downstairs. And came up witha Hefty bag, which he proceeded to put in the bit and secure to the rim with duct tape (the Oirish tool kit, FYI, is a flathead screwdriver, a hammer, a pair of plyers and a roll of duct tape). Heads nodded in agreement: we had a consensus. Some were dispatched to the liquor store to buy copious amounts of Southern Comfort and Sloe Gin (and mixers) and ice. The rest of us placated ourselves with beer. The cauldron of Slammers was mixed, sampled and imbibed. There was much rejoicing!
The last thing I remembered was staggering away from the Summer House to make an early morning bacon cheeseburger deluxe run at our local diner. We pased a bank clock that said 350am. I can’t be sure what happened next, but I came to on the IRT subway in Brooklyn a couple of hours later. By myself. In Brownsville, a significantly unsavoury party of The City. By the time I got back to Rockaway the sun was up and I had already persuaded myself that my terrifying coming to was, in fact, an interesting misadventure and great story to share with everyone else.
