The New Media Journal | The Turkey That Is Obamanomics by Nancy Salvato

The New Media Journal | The Turkey That Is Obamanomics by Nancy Salvato: "Thanksgiving day progressed in somewhat the usual manner, sleeping in; savoring our coffee; reading the news; putzing around on the computer; and at least one of us (me) working out in anticipation of moderating the inevitable consequences of splurging on an inordinate amount of really good food. Soon, though, we found the afternoon getting away from us and realized we needed to pick up the pace. Our newly allotted time-frame no longer permitted enough time for us to take our dogs, Reilly and Coulter, for a long walk. With the promise that we’d take them to the forest preserve with us the following day, we grabbed the dishes we’d prepared earlier, leaving the pups to their own devices, soon to arrive at our destination.

After exchanging hugs and kisses, we got down to the business of setting out the food and carving the turkey. Sitting around the dinner table, we gave thanks for our family, friends, the meal before us and voiced our hope that the soldiers spending this Thanksgiving away from their loved ones would be kept safe in the months to come. Then, in what seemed like an inordinately short amount of time – in contrast to the time it took to plan and prepare the meal – we toasted to each other and plowed through the turkey, stuffing and other fixings, eventually chasing it all down with dessert. Now we were ready to play games.

We began with the new “politically correct” version of the time-honored game, Risk. I do not like playing Risk by the new rules; rules which no longer require world domination for the winner or the same effort by each player. Instead, everyone is assigned a different mission, which means that one person might need to take over an entire continent, while another need only win 1 territory to end the game. We spent too much time setting up a board to have the game end before everyone even had a turn to roll the dice.

Putting Risk aside, we eased into cards with King’s Corners, a family tradition at our holiday gatherings. Upon reaching 150 points, it was time to let the real games begin. We would be playing poker for pennies and we had a novice amongst us. She would be learning how to play the game.

My mother-in-law produced a huge collection of pennies and issued each of us a stack of 50. The first round was Screw Your Neighbor. Everyone anteed up 3 pennies and very quickly a pot was accumulated in the middle of the table. We played winner take all, alternating between games: Bishop’s Pride, Baseball, Dime Store, 5 Card Stud, 5 Card Draw, and variations where we assigned wild cards such as One-Eyed-Jacks, black 7’s and such. Some of us, noticing our stacks of pennies were becoming depleted, simply reached into the penny jar and took more pennies to stay in the game."