Chowhound is a weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture. Tips: [email protected].
One Christmas Eve when I was little, my Uncle Harry’s brother Joe nicknamed me “Magoola” — a drunken mispronunciation of “Magilla” — after a cartoon gorilla from ’60s television. The name stuck for years afterward, clinging embarrassingly like toilet paper to my shoe; ultimately entangling itself in our family Christmas tradition. Around the Holiday Pinochle table, Magoola-speak became a drinking game all my uncles played; belching-out beer orders I’d run and fetch for quarters they’d throw me under the table, where I’d position myself to perform profitably like some organ grinder’s monkey.
“Magoola, grab me another one,” I’d hear. Cha-ching. “Magoola, me, too.” Another register ring. I made some serious piggy-bank jockeying suds. As good as the tips were, eavesdropping on the adult conversations proved priceless. Sitting quietly in my catbird seat at their feet while they slaked truth serum, these uncles of mine — who filled-in as my father figures — seemingly forgot the small boy there within earshot. The longer I listened to their takes on those times, the more I learned about life in our blue-collar, working class. From Vietnam, bitterly-divisive politics, and “those damn hippies,” to Women’s Lib, race relations, and how the guys at the auto plants and factories where everyone worked were getting along, they weighed in on what sounded a lot like today’s weightier issues: war, bitterly divisive politics, LGBTQ+, Black Lives Matter, “wokeness,” and what’s becoming of the world’s working economy with AI, automation, and generational workforces in flux.
Through bits and pieces of my uncles’ back and forth, I got the general gist.
“So, somebody busted out all his windows?” I once overheard.
“What a shame. Beautiful automobile.”
“Sure, but you don’t park a Bonneville in a Ford [Rouge Plant] lot. What was he thinkin’?”
“And his kid just got sent overseas [Vietnam].”
“Christ. It’s heatin’ up over there. Nixon’s sending more troops and airstrikes.”
“They’re communists. They gotta be stopped. We served. Our boys may have to, too. Richard’s number could come up. Change the subject. My wife will hear.”
“Magoola, bring me and Uncle Harry another beer. Tell Aunt Mary we’re ready for ham sandwiches. Make Uncle Janek a good one.”
My mother’s baby brother, John (“Janek” in Polish affectionate), was runt of my large litter of aunts and uncles, and subject to their collective efforts every Christmas to get him good and schnockered for the sake of festive, family fun. A happy drunk for sure, he was typically beyond ecstatic by the time late-night sandwiches were served; his slathered especially thick with my Uncle Harry’s homemade horseradish. Ever-emboldened by boozy delirium to insist no amount was too much for him, my always game and totally plastered uncle would bravely shit-face his yearly trial by sinus-clearing fire.
“Careful, Uncle Janek,” somebody would bait him, winking to everyone else gathered ‘round to watch. “This year’s batch is pretty potent.”
“Naah,” he’d slur a scoff, all sloppy and courageous. “Mary, bring me a soup spoon!”
“Don’t, John.” My aunt always begged. “You’re going to kill yourself one of these days.”
“Bring the soup spoon!” A chorus clamored in support.
With his already spiked snack in front of him, Uncle Janek would ceremoniously take another heaping scoop of beet horseradish from a bowlful set alongside, and plop it atop the sandwich plated open-face, to everyone’s applause. One year, he really out-did himself; gulping-down that spoonful straight instead of spreading it over his sandwich. When his head blew back in his chair after swallowing, Aunt Mary shrieked, thinking he had just expired right there in her dining room. But after remaining motionless for a long second or two, Uncle Janek started wiping away tears with a deeper-than-usual flush filling his face; contorting back from frozen death mask to droopy-eyed semi-consciousness.
“See,” he insisted, struggling to get that single word out before gasping for more air to make a near-breathless request: “Mary, maybe bring me a little glass of water.”
“God Almighty, John,” my aunt shook her head — hand on her heart — while everyone else died laughing. It was now officially a Stempkowski-Gozdzialski-Matynowski Yule celebration, yet boozy delirium had one more part to play in the proceedings to make our Holiday cheer complete.
“Mary, put my favorite song on the record player.” Now, it was Uncle Raymond’s turn to make a spectacle of himself.
“Mary, don’t.” His wife, my Aunt Stella, always tried to intervene, running dramatically to the stereo console first.
“Bullshit, Stella,” Aunt Mary just as theatrically nudged her aside, to rousing family support. Then she’d cue the record and “The Little Drummer Boy” song would start to play. Emerging from the kitchen with a soup pot and wooden spoon in hand, Uncle Ray marched into the living room “a rumpa-pum-pumming” to the rhythm of the tune. Back and forth throughout the house, he’d keep the beat with my Aunt Stella hot on his heels; to the happy howls of everyone rooting for him to make it through to the end of the number. He never did. Somewhere around the third chorus, my aunt would catch him, snatch the wooden spoon from his hand, and start marking time on his backside with it.
“Damnit, Razz!” she’d screech, half-laughing and part of the show. “Every year, you embarrass me!” Still, all I ever heard in her complaint was how much she loved him for just who he was. They stayed married many decades after those days, dying just a short time apart, unable to live without each other for more than a virtual minute.
And it’s this time of year that I miss them all most, and that mix of peculiar antics and quirky personalities that make up the mortar real family structures are made of. To hell with Hallmark-perfect holiday images. When I get to Heaven, I intend to spend a good bit of eternity binge-watching home movies of those Christmases past — just as they were — with all of them again.
Take it from me, Magoola. Take Christmas as it comes. And make memories.
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