The Oppenheimer Report 11/29/10

Though I approached Thanksgiving in Buffalo this year with some trepidation, it proved to be a wonderfully entertaining holiday. Arriving at the hotel late Wednesday night, I expected mayhem, because the night before Thanksgiving in Buffalo is typically the biggest party night of the year. Several years ago, when we stayed at the Holiday Inn up the street, there was an all night party going on in the next room, and I eventually called hotel security to break things up. I’m fairly tolerant, but I drew the line when loud, sloppy drunks repeatedly slammed into my door at 2AM. It looked as if this year might be a replay of that celebratory chaos, because The Hampton Inn, our hotel this year, is even closer to Chippewa Street, and Chippewa is Buffalo’s “party central.” When we arrived, there were scores of inebriated young “adults” in the hotel, coming and going. Although there was quite a lot of noise in the halls, the room itself was quiet, and there was no need to complain. I looked out our 4th floor window, overlooking lines of kids waiting to get into the various packed bars, and for just one brief moment, I pined for the days before I became a fuddy duddy. Then again, I can’t ever recall waiting in line to get into a bar. For me, the bar experience does not include waiting outside in the freezing rain while some cretin bouncer scrutinizes fake I.D.s. I have always avoided popular hotspots like the plague.


Thanksgiving dinner entertainment this year included my sister’s three grandchildren, and I marveled at the mess three toddlers can create in less than an hour. I am also amazed at the amount of baby stuff with which my nephews now routinely travel. It’s like they were a stage crew setting up for a rock concert, and the first floor of my mother‘s rather large house was completely filled with baby paraphernalia. Ever the family archivist, I made a point of photographing and videoing as much of the kids’ activity as I could, and they proved to be an endless source of humor. My mom was very much “with it” for the dinner and for this I am especially thankful. As one of the more rambunctious little girls teetered on the edge of a chair, Mom even had the presence of mind to warn the parents. It’s hit or miss these days, and Mom could easily have been absent through the entire event. Lewy Body Disease is extremely confounding and can really throw cold water on any family gathering. As I think back, dementia has more than once presented itself at these Oppenheimer Thanksgiving dinners, and these multi-generational family gatherings are never dull. I remember one Thanksgiving many years ago, when one of my favorite octogenarian uncles walked up to me and out of the blue, smiling proudly, implored me to “feel his butt.” He’d apparently been doing some kind of ass exercises prescribed to him by his geriatric butt coach, and was very proud of his newfound firmness. A bit embarrassed, I jokingly suggested to him that people might talk, but he then became very insistent, grabbing my hand and placing it firmly on his butt cheek. I gingerly squeezed and nodded approvingly. I’m only thankful it wasn’t an even more embarrassing appendage I was directed to grab. When in Rome.

As an added bonus to the Thanksgiving mirth, after the dinner when we returned to our hotel, there was a wedding party milling about in the lobby. Just after we walked in the door, a middle-aged man came running up to the front desk from the elevator, totally befuddled and wearing a shirt and socks, but absolutely nothing else. Somehow, he’d managed to lock himself out of his room in this compromised state and needed another room key. Personally, if I were him, I might have taken off my shirt and wrapped it around my waist, so that my bare ass was not prominently displayed to the general public in a busy hotel lobby, but that’s just me. As we waited for the elevator to go up to our room, he sheepishly came up behind us and when the elevator door opened, I sighed and said “Go ahead, we’ll take the next one.” I was tempted to make him ride up with us, or worse, to wait for the next elevator, but in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I took pity on him. As we waited for the next elevator, I looked at the bride and groom, who had just witnessed this bizarre event, and I asked, “Did I do the right thing?” to which the bride laughed and replied, “Absolutely!” The next morning, as I stumbled into the breakfast room for my complimentary powdered eggs and Tang, who was the first person I came across, sitting alone? You got it, naked man. He looked up and as soon as he saw me, he immediately looked down, like our dog Jasper after she’s been caught peeing on the floor. It was priceless. I was half tempted to walk up behind him and say something like “Psst …you can run but you can’t hide … we have photographs and we gave them to the bride and groom for their wedding album.”

All in all, a special Thanksgiving.



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED