I’ll be the first to agree that our superstition that grasping half of a dried turkey wishbone with one’s little pinkie, lining up an opponent similarly on the other leg, and then having a tug-fest to see which person can walk away from the skirmish with the larger half once the bone has broken in two, seems like a long way to wander off the pathway of making one’s wishes a reality.
However, every Thanksgiving, once our family had made its usual alarmingly quick work of the turkey that Mom would have stressed over for at least a day and a half before cooking to perfection, the nagging would start by my sister and me to break the wishbone in order to claim ownership of the wish. But it was never going to be that easy.
First of all, my Mom would be close to exhaustion by this point in time and both she and my Father would be operating in a turkey stupor which is never helped by the whining of children. Mom was resolute that although we remained somewhat untamed for much of the time, we should be taught how to approach a formal meal as civilized and socially cultured human beings. She had been raised with Manners and insisted that we at least be able to keep up the appearance of having them when the situation called for them. Thanksgiving Dinner in our house was one of those sorts of occasions.
The table would be set with the lace tablecloth. Mom’s Good Set of dishes would be brought out along with the silverware that she had gathered piece by piece before she was married. These Fancy Things proclaimed that this was a Formal Meal. We would all be dressed in our best church-clothes, and we would have tapered candles standing tall in holders in the middle of the table, lit with actual fire. A bold move for a woman with feral children. Cloth napkins would be waiting for us at our place settings—napkins that would need to be immediately cleaned and ironed before being put away for the next formal meal, still months away. We would each have a glass of white grape juice, suitable for an elegant non-alcohol-drinking family like us, that we would be instructed not to guzzle. Dinner came with all of the fixings, and I can’t remember a single time when it wasn’t absolutely delicious!
The post dinner cleanup was a massive campaign staged to include all family members. That was necessary because of how many specialty dishes with specific serving utensils had been used during the meal. Once the counter was full of the ready-to-be-handwashed dishes, leaving it to look like the dish pit of a slightly expensive restaurant, our collective attention was turned to the remnants of the turkey that had been placed on one of our big baking sheets in a vain attempt to control the mess that a full-sized turkey carcass creates. The remaining meat needed to be removed, but since that was done with sharp knives and careful planning, we kids had absolutely no part in what would follow…except for the lengthy and in-depth discussions about finding and examining the wishbone.
That was our area of expertise.
If our incessant pleading for permission to pull the wishbone right away, wore our parents down, they would inevitably hand it over and say, ‘have at it’ or whatever was the equivalent during the 70s.
We would have already argued our way into picking which side was going to be ours—our Lucky Side. We would wrap our pinkies around our piece, remembering just how awkward pulling with one’s pinkie is once we’d successfully cramped the entire outside of our hands in the effort. It was usually at this point that we’d realize that we’d forgotten to come up with the prerequisite Wish during all of this nonsense and we’d have to call a TimeOut while we hastily put one together.
My Wishes were always dumb. I regret that now. I gave absolutely no forethought to the majority of my Wishes and squandered several of the opportunities I was handed through turkey wishbone pulling. The same thing happened to me at my birthday when I was faced with a cake that was flaming with birthday candles and everyone happily calling to me to make a wish before blowing them out. Panic. Squandered.
With TimeOut over, we’d line up again, pinkie against pinkie, close our eyes, wish our lame wish, and YANK! Nothing would happen to the bone but we’d both be faced with releasing our grasp on the bone and shaking our pinkies in pain. Too soon! Just like Mom warned us. Lesson presented, Mom would put the bone on top of the refrigerator, since neither of us could see that high, so we would forget about it while it dried out.
Days later we would remember that we STILL hadn’t split that thing apart and we would clamour for a look at it. It would be brought down to be studied and pronounced ready to go. We would squabble about which side we’d each picked as our Lucky Side, we’d realign our grasps, squeeze our eyes pretending to remember the wishes we’d previously decided on, and PULLLLLLLLED! That satisfying snap would sound, and we would each be left holding a partial turkey bone in our hands.
Celebrations would be delayed until we checked out what we had and what the other had and sometimes until we measured them, but finally one of us would erupt in a Victory Yell And Dance, and the other one would inevitably call a foul. Having lost by chance was always painful and the loser never went quietly.
Whether or not the winner was ever able to claim that their wish had miraculously come true through the chance breaking of a dried turkey bone, was never noticed or followed up on. It was the winning part that took precedence in our house. The winner won and the loser did not. What better good fortune was there than that?
