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Giving thanks for some wonderful memories

“Traditions are our roots and a profile of who we are as individuals and who we are as a family. They are our roots, which give us stability and a sense of belonging - they ground us.” 

                                                                                        — Lidia Bastianich

AUBURN, Maine — A holiday tradition vanished with the death of my father.

But when you are the survivor, you long for the custom that brought you closer together with a parent.

I was fortunate to be raised in Italian neighborhood with nearly a dozen relatives on one street. Thanksgiving meant a stream of cousins and uncles, a smorgasbord of home-made food and booze — particularly fine wine.

There were traditions within traditions and one was rooting for your high school during Turkey Day football games across the state of Massachusetts. 

For nearly 50 years, you would find my father and me at a wind-blown, frozen football field watching Revere High School confront the Winthrop Vikings on a brisk Thanksgiving morning.

Spending a cold morning at Harry Della Russo Stadium or Winthrop’s ocean-side field was the prelude to a dinner for 20 relatives all vying for sumptuous meals and share a shot of Anisette to take the chill out of those football fans returning from the game.

During the games, we lamented about the cold and spent a couple of bucks on hot chocolate. There were adults who were seen reaching inside their jackets for  their flasks filled with rye or brandy.

I envied them. I found hot chocolate didn’t stop the shivers triggered by the biting cold. But a belt of brandy might be just what the doctor ordered in sub-zero temperatures.

Back in the day, the Div. I teams from the Greater Boston Area drew big crowds. The game gave former RHS football players like me a chance to catch up with former classmates as well as hang around my father — Albert John Blasi.

Big Al coached the Revere Patriots baseball team. He believed in supporting the football team and the game gave him the perfect excuse stay out of my mother’s way in the kitchen. My father did not find slaving over a hot oven a palatable way to spend the morning. Making soup or salad was the extent of his culinary skills.

Those talks in the car before we got to the field were precious to me. I watched my dad flip around the AM dial looking for other high school football scores as we raced home for a round of pasta, fish and Turkey.

Thanksgiving Day mornings watching high school football came to a slow stop when age caught up with my dad and the death of his close friend, Robert Marra. My father and Mr. Marra were fixtures in the stands. Both are no longer with us and a tradition disappeared with them.

The memories are sometimes painful, but I know I was lucky to have those significant moments with a father who loved his family and community. Going to a high school game would not be the same without my dad.

Thanksgiving traditions sometimes fade away with time, but those memories of my father standing in the cold watching a game come alive every holiday.

For that, I am thankful.