No Safety Net, No Internet: Cabinet of Wonders and Sting-pong
It's How We Party That Reveals The Most About Us and Our Families
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I've always had this thing about parties, and that’s you have to put 300% of your energy into a party. By the end of the party if you’re not dead dog tired, you haven’t gone all out for the guests. It’s like a Mission Impossible movie plot, my wife swears that I complicate everything, and while I do, I pull it off in the end and not only do we have good food, everyone has a good time. Why? Because when everyone is so busy pulling all the preparation together, there’s very little time for sitting around and doing what many families end up doing: picking fights with one another because there’s nothing else to do.
It’s that simple.
If you are ever invited to one of our parties, you’re in for a treat. I smoke meat for the occasion while my wife and daughter go nuts baking. It may be excessive, but it’s how we give what we can, and give something that is special. Anyone can go buy presents, but prepping meals for people that they remember, then ask next year if there will be another party like the year before, that’s an EXPERIENCE.
And besides, there is some ego involved, because it’s cool to be able to pull it all off. Like Geddy Lee, just look at all the equipment that guy plays WHILE singing WHILE playing bass. He’s my spirit animal, I swear. I’m addicted to pulling off a great celebration.
I finally realized why I fed this compulsion, as I didn’t truly perceive the real benefit until this weekend. Besides all the flurry, and the worry in some cases when I didn’t think I’d be done in time or that the main dish was going to be ruined, I finally saw why this drive for a blow out experience each time family gathers was so important.
This weekend our table was full of just adults, all who had contributed to our Easter celebration. Those adults included my kids and my niece and nephew, no longer children but who are now mature, fun people. We were in the middle of the meal, and as I studied each face at the table, each a grown up who once was either my kid or would come to play with my kids I knew that our zeal had been passed on. There sat the cousin, who when he was three would not let my two year old daughter play with his trucks. The kid had so many damn toys yet he would get worried that my daughter wasn’t playing with them “correctly”. She’d grab a different one, he’d take it. I still smile when I recall my daughter did her best Gollum imitation as she pounded her knees and muttered “I. Want. To. PLAAAAYYYYY”!
Those days are gone, but their spirits have developed into some amazing qualities. No phones are out at our parties, as we’re all too engaged with one another while eating. Years of tradition have really shaped our habits to REALLY PARTY with each other. Early on my sister-in-law’s husband would start hockey games with mini hockey sticks and tennis balls in the basement of his home. Most of the kids from my nephew’s neighborhood would be over on Easter, for the Big Basement Hockey Tournament. Not much different from other weekends, but the Easter weekend was the BIG Tournament in the basement before dinner. My wife and sister-in-law would laugh at us, saying it was like the episode of Seinfeld when Kramer took karate lessons with 10 year olds. Two dads, 6-8 boys ages 7-12, my daughter, all of us with no shoes, mini hockey sticks, tennis rackets, wiffle ball bats, hitting a tennis ball. It was hilarious - stubbed toes, knuckles cracked on sticks.
In those days my nephew had some severe food allergies, and accompanying health challenges too. Sometimes when a kid has those issues the mom can be overly protective, and it’s good for a kid, and particularly a boy, to be pushed by his dad to achieve balance. One year my nephew took a hockey stick to the knuckles with a crack, and down he went, balling.
“Kev, Kev, Kev. C’mon.” His dad was standing over him, nudging him with his foot. “C’mon, get up. walk it off Kevin , walk it off.” The rest of us cheered Kevin on. The game had to go on. And little Kevin got up, tears still streaming down his face, and played the rest of the game.
Blow out celebrations were our norm where there the inevitable tournament of capture the flag, football, baseball, hockey in the street would break out weather permitting. Basement hockey was the fall back.
For the adults these were a challenge. Try running around after kids when you have a belly full of Easter ham, it’s not easy. But it was not a sacrifice, because it was just so damn fun. I will share that it is gratifying to hear the same kid in his or her 20s admit that now they know how hard it is run around with full bellies. I think the jeers and insults we adults put up with about being slow are going to come back to haunt them when their kids are begging them to join in.
That’s the spirit that has shaped Kevin into quite an accomplished young man of 25 today. And there he was, at my table, I can’t believe how he has transformed. He, his sister, my kids, are the result of all this energy we have put into our celebrations. Other things too, obviously, but I noticed that much of what makes them so much fun is how we have partied together as families for most of their lives.
And partied hard.
How It Started
You can say that our paths are predetermined to a large extent by our own personalities. Dads and moms shape our outlooks, and family functions really do as well. Growing up, my family had celebrations where we went a little nuts. Dad got us an old fashioned ice cream maker with the hand crank. It’s the type with the barrel that you fill with salt and ice with an inner cylinder containing the cream set in the center. Your job is to turn the crank. And turn the crank, and turn the crank.
The crazy thing was we would have the homemade ice cream in the winter to go with Aunt Eleanor’s and my mom’s pies. And at Christmas this was after the 14 dozen or so cookies my mom would bake to give away. This ice cream tradition started in the 70s when I was ten, and to entertain ourselves while we waited, out came the projector and the slide from all the trips. So the ice cream barrel would be passed around the living room as we projected the slides up on the wall and Aunt Eleanor (a family friend) would get in arguments with her mother over when and where their pictures were taken.
I’ve always been an old school dude, and even at 10 years of age, I wanted to do things the old fashioned and “right” way. So in the winter before any dinners where we planned to have ice cream, I wouldn’t walk to the corner store for a bag of ice. Nope - that was too easy. I would get my sled and a couple of garbage bags and head out to the creek behind my house to chop ice. I decided that’s what you did, and fought with dad over it who said he’d get ice at the store. I made it my ritual.
In later years my mom got SERIOUS about the cookie production when she bought a cookie gun. It was nuts, like her glue gun that was always plugged in. Just like Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber that could be summoned and levitated across the room, she’d have one of the guns out. Before leaving to visit she’d bake a batch from the cookie gun, then wrap them up and put a fancy embellishment on the package with the glue. Weapons of mass weight gain destruction.
This insanity didn’t abate as we all got older. When my sister got married in the late 90s my parents decided they would host the ceremony and reception at the house.
For over 300 people.
So naturally I took a week off and made the trek from Detroit back to the Catskills to help get things set up. They were taking a chance because it was all going to be hosted outside, and despite the pavilion tent we had set up, all the tables and chairs were not going to fit in the tent. I laugh because it was so typical of my family to not think things through. The day we set up the tent it was raining, and my sister was beside herself when she saw all the tables Dad had jammed together just to get them under cover. You couldn’t walk between many of the tables, let alone sit at them. As usual, Dad ignored me when I said they wouldn’t fit. Sometimes I let dad get into the jam that he swore up and down wouldn’t happen. That pisses him off when I do that, but hey, he insisted. So my brother-in-law-to-be and I had helped him cram everything under the tent.
My sister freaked out. And Dad, still pissed off, and true to form, delivered his “truth” bomb.
“I’m telling you, tomorrow, if it’s raining, and you’re sitting at a table we can’t fit under here, guess where you’re at? Out. Fucking. Side.” And he left.
Thanks Dad, we wouldn’t have figured that out.
It was just as well, as my sister had other plans that he thought were excessive and since there was so much to do, he moved on to those tasks which left me to make my sister's plans for the tent and dance floor to come to fruition. The dance floor that was delivered with the tent consisted of interlocking panels. My brother-in-law-to-be and I set those up outside the tent.
Because there was no room under the tent!
That didn’t conform to my sister’s plan.
“The dance floor has to be under the tent, I don’t want to dance in the rain,” she said.
“And it’s way too small,” she added.
“The tent? Yeah, we know,” I said sarcastically.
“NO. The dance floor is. You gotta build a platform or something.”
It was not quite 1 PM, and the wedding was the next day. Yet my sister played me right. She started telling me how I should build the platform. Which pissed ME off. And because I don’t like to be told how to do things, I decided to do it the way it needed to be done. So she succeeded in fooling me into accepting the challenge. That’s one of the reasons why she’s so dear to me, she can get me to do things that I would talk myself out of.
Our family business was construction and development, and luckily Dad had enough 4x8 and 2x4’s for me to rig something and shim up the dance floor panels so they’d be level with the makeshift risers we built. Where the edges of my risers weren’t flush with the dance panels, I duct taped the edges so no one would trip, and that’s where I danced with my wife so I could prevent accidents. But we doubled the size of the dance floor, and of course more tables were further outside the tent than before.
The next day was a beautiful, cloudless July summer day, perfect for a wedding. The chaos didn’t end though. The DJ’s equipment shared the same circuit from our barn that the caterers used. When we started the ceremony the music suddenly cut out as they switched on their equipment. Our guests got to see Dad and me scramble as he headed to the barn while I jumped the neighbor's fence in my tux so we could plug into their setup by their pool.
But what a day. And yeah, we’re crazy - Dad thought it was a big joke that he could clean up afterwards still wearing his tux. He still jokes about that. I guess we Dads all have our dumb sense of humor.
Cabinet Of Wonders
The photo at the beginning of this article is of The Cabinet of Wonders. My smoker has filled the role of that old Ice Cream Maker. Sure it is excessive, but I tell you there’s nothing like planning out and delivering some of the best meat you’ll ever eat. And I admit I like that sense of drama of having to get everything together, prepping the meat with dry rub or marinating it beforehand as the plan comes together. There is risk at hand - I may not pull it off because I have to smoke the day we eat. Getting that succulent meat fresh out of the cabinet, and onto your plate is something that our extended family all salivates over. I like seeing the anticipation in their faces as I tend to the operation.
Smoking meat in that cabinet is a messy process, I do it in the cold, rain or shine, and for Thanksgiving as well. I smell like a smoke house when it’s done. I know there are smokers you can use on the grill, there are neat looking ceramic smokers that don’t look so steampunk and antiquated, and yes, there are smokers that can be controlled digitally with apps from your phone.
But making things easy and convenient is not the point. That prevents any skill from being developed, and who wants an app to do everything for you anyway? Part of this being a special event is to do it in a special way. That means some sacrifice. Keeping an even temperature with charcoal in November in that thing is a challenge. And you have to check it every half hour or so, to either feed more chips or more charcoal. In fall when I want to keep warm out there I’ll build a fire in the firepit and sip coffee while I wait. Some of the best podcasts and ideas I’ve developed have come to mind as I’m keeping the fires burning.
That’s a metaphor that I’ve learned to embrace. Keep the fires burning. It makes sense of my life in some ways.
What Is Sting-Pong?
As our kids have grown, basement hockey has been replaced with other activities that our crew has made into something uniquely theirs. Just 3 years ago we were at my sister-in-laws and while the remainder of the food was being prepped, the kids disappeared into the basement. We could hear jeers and shouting as they played ping-pong, but from upstairs it sounded differently than before. We’d hear the back and forth of the ball, but it would stop with an uproar, and get quiet momentarily. Next would be the sound of the ball being served and an even louder outburst and cries of protest.
After we finished dinner, my niece, who was the youngest, her eyes gleaming with anticipation, asked around the table expectantly “Sting-pong?”.
“What’s sting-pong,” my wife asked.
“We play to five, then the loser has to stand while the others each peg him or her by slamming the ball at them! When you get hit in the face it stings.” She grinned.
Sting-pong.
Yet another glimmer of the sense of adventure we’ve been able to impart, and why all the effort for great parties has instilled spirit in the next generation of our family. This weekend as I enjoyed a great meal and all the handstands we went through to do something special, I came to the realization that this craziness, manifested in so many forms on both sides of our families, is there for a reason. It shows the next ones in line how to live. Not online. But celebrating each other.
