Men down...

 Men Down...

     To be included in a Sheehy family affair was almost always fun and also a genealogical puzzle as to who was who and where were they connected. There was the Sheehy side with the Five from Florence and the Kenmir group who were connected to a completely different sphere of influence. For me, as a family friend and a kid I was given mostly the never-no-mind treatment by these adults wearing suits, dresses, hard shoes and hats. The Kenmirs didn't know my Dad from Adam but the Sheehys were nice to me because I was Benny's son. Thus, I gravitated toward the Sheehys and Smiths since they were always laughing. Dale had the quiet Dakota wit and Rose once counselled me on parenthood through letters I have kept for forty years. She isssued the deeply wise statement to me "when they make their first one in the toilet it will seem like a gold" I  am proud to say I sat by Dale at the St.Patrick's day party when he had dyed his goatee green. Lawrence was a rather imposing and dignified figure whose statements rang with authority tinged with a bit of the Irish humor in them. The rather odd thing about my inclusion was that it was always just me and not my parents or siblings. Evan Sheehy said I was annointed as a member of the family and I took that as a great compliment. My family is great fun and I love them to the moon but the Sheehys were not only fun but a great influence. They also put out true white people spreads with mayonaise a plenty and not a whole grain anything in sight. While I moved around the front room on McNerney players in the spectacle appeared who I did not know. I remember well, John gregariously approaching an unknown man there and hailing him with "what'ya say there Dwight!" Dwight or "Brownie" as he was mostly known was in between cigarettes and his response was just to jiggle the change in his slacks pockets and answer "Shoot." There was the unusually sexy presence of Aunt Shirley and of course the old commie Percy Partridge Kenmir. Yet, this post is more about the grand tradition of Thanksgiving with the Sheehys that continued long enough that I was included many times. It was not the Turkey Day Tussle which was a Kennedy family-like touch football game but the early feast that sometimes required three birds to fill the many bellies attending. The story here is from one of the Lawrence Sheehy hosted extravaganzas when family drank and ate until bursting. In a time of unquestioned patriarchy the women made the food, set the tables and cleaned up while the men turned to football on TV or naps. In the large house in Altadena there was room enough for many prone posibilities. On many a wonderful early evening there would be three to four men down and snoozing on couches and beds around the home. While the gals were scrubbing that stubborn gravy pan the old fellas would be tryptophan deep in dreams.