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So! November again, is it? Well, happy Thanksgiving! Let’s do the appropriate thing and think about what we’re thankful for OK, the wife, the kids, the general absence of physical decay in your body, world peace wait, scratch that one. The miraculous survival of beautiful places in the world, and yes! the food on your table. Are we done? Thank God. Let’s eat! What is this thing we celebrate each year? We know that in some silly ancient way it concerns men with buckles on their hats, but we like to keep the Pilgrims confined to the school pageants and dusty books. Nevertheless, if our moral intent each Thanksgiving is to stop taking good fortune for granted and truly be thankful, it might be helpful to think a bit more seriously on the story of a community that certainly would have perished were it not for the kindness of strangers. “Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together... They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week.” – The first known mention of American Thanksgiving, from “Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1622 Yes, from the very start, Thanksgiving was about devouring big birds and living off the leftovers for the next six days. It was also about the good fortune of staying alive. Of the 102 passengers who set sail from Plymouth, England in September 1620, 51 had died by the late autumn of 1621. Those who remained owed a great deal to the agricultural and diplomatic assistance of a Patuxet Indian who, having been several times kidnapped by English explorers and traders, had learned England’s language and customs the hard way. The Indian’s name was Tisquantum, or Squanto, and that he saw fit to help a group of Englishmen can rightly be considered the true miracle of Thanksgiving. “…And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.” – Mourt’s Relation In October 1621, after a good fall harvest, Gov. William Bradford called for a celebration. Squanto, of course, was invited and so was the neighboring Chief Massasoit and 90 of his closest friends. For three days, the Pilgrims and Indians played sports and ate birds and gave us not only the foundation for four-day football-watching weekends, but a tale worth repeating. Greg Blake Miller writes from Las Vegas. For our Letters department: ocfamily.com |
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