Sybil Bruncheon's A Tale for Thanksgiving Time: "SUBURBAN STORIES THAT STUN AND STUPEFY"...

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TODAY IN THE NEWS!..... The warning signs had been there for several months. Mrs. Ruth Anne Snively of 1148 Pembroke Lane had complained to her neighbors of strange voices, coming at first from the telephone, the radio, the television where it seemed strange voices always might have been heard. Indeed, "Ruthie", as she was known to all the Girl Scout Troop mothers, had been known for her quick wit, her sparkling sense of humor, her quirky imagination, and for her desire to be a stand-up comedian in local clubs "once the kids have grown up" as she put it. She even managed a couple of tentative debuts at the local Kiwanis and Shriner's clubs where her little act was described by the local critics as "refreshing"....and "a charming bit of whimsical and timely fluff filled with social commentary and some recipes".

Perhaps it was no surprise when Mrs. Snively began to exhibit eccentricities like a growing diet of Hostess Ding Dongs, Pringles Potato Chips, and vegan "beef" jerky. Frequently, she would answer her front door with facial masks of Marshmallow Fluff and Peter Pan Extra-Crunchy Peanut Butter. Her dependence on increasing dosages of St. Joseph's Aspirin for Children did not go unnoticed at PTA meetings...And on weekends, she could be found incoherent in back alleyways completely drunk on cocktails of Tang ....and Woolite....and Maraschino cherries. After her husband Arthur left her taking the children to Chillicothe, her friends tried interventions and enlisting the aid of the Come To Jesus Society Of Sobriety down on Walnut Street... but nothing worked.

It was finally on that terrible day in January when Snively wandered into her kitchen and overheard all her appliances talking behind her back. Oh yes!..They quickly smiled and pretended to change the subject, but it was too late. She had heard the worst!...and the jokes at her expense.... comments about "that tired old apron", and her "water-weight gain after the Holidays".....It was all too much! TOO MUCH!...and so, lovely, sweet, witty Mrs. Ruth Anne Snively calmly went to her former friend the Sunbeam waffle maker, laid her perfectly coiffed head down on its non-stick surface, and slowly pressed herself into a fluffy breakfast treat for the police to find later in the afternoon. Her suicide note was found on the counter beside an unopened bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's and a virgin stick of Land 'O' Lakes lightly salted butter. (You know Land 'O' Lakes? The one with the Indian maiden on the front whose knees look like breasts??)

Well, Ruth is now being treated for first degree burns and minor cheek-dimpling at Flower Of Mercy Hospital downtown, and will be receiving a lovely re-contouring of her complexion while being housed in their newly opened Extreme Neurosis Wing. She's slowly being re-acclimated to Kitchen Chore duty.... but under strict (and loving!) supervision.... (she continues to wear earplugs to ...shut out.. "unwelcome" chatter"...)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Fun 'n' Gaymes For Thanksgiving Time!"...

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Hi there, Boys and Girls! Do you like to play games with each other during our Holiday times?... especially when Mommy and Daddy are having martinis downstairs with other grown-ups, and you've locked the bedroom door? Sure! Who doesn't!...

... well, here's a game from our favorite Highlights Magazine from November!... you know, Highlights? It's the fun magazine in the dentist's office waiting room where you sit and someone's screaming in the other room while your parents tell you to sit still and stop being a big baby! I hate that, don't you?

... well, here's a photo of a little girl named Fifi at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade watching the floats, the big helium balloons, the marching bands, the baton twirlers, and scary elf-clowns. She's all dressed up in her fancy parade-watching outfit that her Mommy bought at Filene's... in the BASEMENT!... and LOOK!... on her shoulder is a little brooch! Do you know what a brooch is?... well, it's a fancy word for a lady-pin. Yes, it's true that a police man wears a badge, but don't call it a man-brooch because he might yell... or throw you in Tiny-Jail... which is just a bird-cage but with thicker bars.

Anyway, Fifi's brooch is kind of strange, so the game is for you to select the best description of what it is... here are the answers, and you pick the best!

1) It's a pipe cleaner craft project that little Fifi made at her Brownies jamboree. She won third prize in the "Gifts For Grandma Contest", and she would have won first place if she hadn't told the judges it was of a dog she saw run over by a steam shovel...

2) It's a bunch of dust bunny hair she found under the sofa and glued together with spit and a wire. Fifi likes Picasso, and claimed it's an abstract from her own "Blue Period".

3) Fifi's kitty, Mr. Scratchkins, has been shedding lately, and she decided to help by giving him a hair-cut and making a miniature voo-doo doll of him complete with claws made of toothpicks and red eyes made from cranberries... for the HOLIDAYS!

4) A TV show told a story about a place called Mt. Everest and the scary giant-people that live up in the sky called the Yeti. Fifi asked Daddy what an Abominable Snowman is, and he showed her by putting on his thermal underwear, and a pair of underpants over his face, and then he hid in the front closet for when Mommy came home from the store! Fifi laughed and laughed... and made a pin just like him!

5) It's bird poop and Mommy just went to get a Kleenex.

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Sybil Bruncheon’s A Whole Month Of Thanksgiving… LEFTOVERS!!!!.....

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Bernice had enjoyed Aunt Carlina's pumpkin pie so much, that when she finished the last piece, she decided to wear the nice doily from the pie plate as a hat... um… thingie.

...and she wore it straight through to Easter the following Spring. ...even though the crumbs started attracting the ants back in March... And oh, how they itched.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Gardening" Tips for the New Year...

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Hey folks! It's that time of year when we're surrounded by discarded pots of poinsettias wrapped in woefully cheerful crinkles of colored foil... the formerly lush and beautiful poinsettias either wilted from thirst or rotting from sitting in too much water, but either way, dying and eventually disposed of like props or yesterday's holiday leftovers.

It may seem funny to say, but plants are not only living things, they are also trying their very best, just like any other life here on Earth. They come into the world in nurseries, assuming they will thrive and grow in a natural world, NOT in some dentist office or on a kitchen counter in Akron to struggle and die by mid-January.

If you've bought or been given a beautiful Christmas cactus or a poinsettia, check online for directions. I will say that they are not indestructible. Try always to give it distilled water, NOT tap! Minerals, fluorine, and chlorine are rough on plants! These plants are used to rain water... pure H2O with nothing else in it except traces of nitrogen, oxygen, and CO2 which get dissolved in it as the rain falls through the atmosphere.

Like poinsettias, Christmas cactuses just HAPPEN to "bloom" during this time of year. They're tropical, and it's pure coincidence that they show off during our Holiday season... We've turned them into an amusing accessory to be wrapped in colorful aluminum foil pots and glitter. They actually thrive in their native habitats regardless of "Santa", etc. As a matter of fact, if you see poinsettias in their home territories, you'll find they will have grown into trees, standing proudly over the cute little cottages and bungalows they're planted beside.

Imagine! A beautiful poinsettia in all its red and green glory, not dying in some forlorn corporate cubicle by a scalding radiator where someone forgot to water it week after week... no!… a poinsettia 13' high, covered with hundreds of its very startling "blossoms" waving in a tropical breeze. Your cactus or poinsettia will be a loyal and very dear companion all year long and surprise you every November/December!! You'll turn around in the Fall after Halloween has passed, with Thanksgiving on the way, and there they'll be!!!... colored buds, red, pink or, white peeking through the green, and you'll be filled with that lovely feeling that even as the colder, grayer weather is on its way, so too is the promise of life blossoming right before your eyes, in your own home, and because you nurtured and cherished it with your own hands... and heart. It's true; all living things, all of them… want love… and to live.

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From Sybil Bruncheon's "The Other Side of Thanksgiving"...

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Nowadays, we all think of Thanksgiving as a cheerful Holiday full of national tradition, family affection, and civic good will, but did you know that 100 years ago, there was a mischievous and occasionally sinister side to the celebration? Well, there was! Here are some Thanksgiving greeting cards with very strange overtones... some even with children! You be the judge...

Card #1; Designed by Elmér Friedkush, a former nursery school principal, this card from 1897, had a disturbing caption printed on the back (in very, very fine print!); "Little Sonya took great pleasure in showing the turkey how ugly he was!... and then she made a poot in the face of her kitty, Mrs. Whiskers! But that was alright for she never wore pantalettes under her dresses! What a naughty little girl she was!"...

Card #2; This card was drawn by the German political cartoonist, Fritzy Kalmuchen in 1901. Known for his extremist views, his pro-Prussian nationalism, and his obsession with Aryan mysticism, he became a devotee of the budding science of Freudian dream study… here he shows a little elf/boy trying to hypnotize a turkey into allowing him to behead it. Notice that the ax is highly decorated and matches the elf/boy’s costume. Fritzy reveals in the caption on the back that the turkey hypnotizes the elf/boy right back… and convinces him to behead himself…

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Sybil Bruncheon’s POST-Thanksgiving Update: ...Perrysburg, Ohio.

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Margaret always asked if she was still pretty after Thanksgiving. Asking here..asking there! She would strut around in a bikini in front of the grandparents, the children and relatives, the in-laws, even Cousin Fred in his special Wheelchair/Forklift-For-The-Inconveniently-Large, posing in mirrors, doing backbends and calisthenics, smoking a cigarette...with her toes.... you know the type. So after about six or seven Thanksgivings of this, could you blame Fred when he accidentally-on-purpose backed his rig over Margaret during her "I'm Just A Girl Who Cain't Say No!" number as the pecan pie was being brought out from the kitchen? ....Even the grandparents pointed and laughed... and the children helped to dispose of the body in the backyard compost pile.... (ironically, it was Margaret who brought the lovely flowers for the table every year!)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Thanksgivings Past"... Eating on the run in 1968...

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We have here an actual photo of Mrs. Helen Fobisher, a secretarial assistant at the General Motors showroom on West 57th Street in Manhattan during Thanksgiving week. Mrs. Fobisher had been with the company for just seven years (right out of college!), and in addition to her meticulous work habits, she also exhibited an extraordinary talent for innovation and, dare we say it, INVENTION!

Seen here is Helen in her "Disco-Desk", a one-piece piece of office furniture that allowed people to sit at their desks in perfect comfort without the trouble of pulling up a chair. And concealed in the space-age polymer-structure of the desk-top was a hot-plate food-prep unit which made it possible to simply press a few buttons, and have your lunch appear right in front of you... without interrupting your work-day! Talk about modern convenience and efficiency!! No more wasted time standing in line in the cafeteria or waiting at the corner deli for a hot corned beef sandwich that would be totally cold by the time you got back to the office. The Disco-Desk offered a fairly comprehensive menu of standard American work-day lunch-fare; the sort of food and refreshments that one would expect on an average weekday, Monday through Friday, nine to five! Certainly nothing too exotic, and definitely nothing French!

And wasn’t Helen lucky? Her bosses at GM were so impressed with her Disco-Desk, they bought her designs and patent as a surprise to her right before Thanksgiving! What a way to celebrate the Holiday season, huh? Interestingly, the New Products Division decided that instead of using Helen’s Disco-Desk for the office, they would install a small motor and four swivel casters and sell the desk as a futuristic bumper car at Coney Island. It was called the George Jetson Jalopy… it was a tremendous failure.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Little Known History for the Holidays!"...

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Did you know that the Mayflower and the Pilgrims first landed in Provincetown on Cape Cod?... NOT in Plymouth as you were all taught in grade school! As a matter of fact, several of Mummie's ancestors decided against sailing the extra distance on to the "mainland" of the New World, and stayed on with many native Americans in the lovely topography and seashore of what would very soon become Provincetown with its picturesque views! No wonder it became the festive, frisky, fun, and FABULOUS center of New England gay life we know today!.. not at all like the forlorn life that the other pilgrims went on to live in Plymouth with witch trials, executions, and paranoia that followed almost immediately! PILGRIMS! They were all PILLS, and certainly GRIM! Ah well.... This is one of those many things that I'm thankful for on Thanksgiving! That I came from the right side of the tracks... or the BAY, as the case may be! LOLOLOL! <3

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*Tour-ette on Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving... and a time to say "Thank you!"... 11/24/2021

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