Um, that’s NOT how it happened

THANKSGIVING

Remember being an innocent child in elementary school? I recall tracing my little fingers with a crayon to make the feathers on a turkey. Perhaps I (badly) used those round-tipped scissors on black construction paper to make a Pilgrim hat. Thank you to the fine elementary teachers I had for teaching me WAY more myth than reality. You protected us and should have.

Most of what you learned about Thanksgiving is utter bullshit. Sorry to rain on your parade and water down your gravy. Where do I begin?

This is a bit hurried and unpolished and posting this on Saturday wouldn’t be the same

Ten Ridiculously Wrong Things About Thanksgiving

Let me begin by starting I respect the courage and faith of the Pilgrims. I may have been the fellow laughing at the pub if I am a reincarnated Englishman when I heard about their prospective voyage back in 1620.

1. The PBS series The American Experience “The Pilgrims” (Season 27, Episode 5) had an interesting quote “The feast almost certainly didn’t take place as we imagine it did.” As Mr. Spock would say, “fascinating.”
Also, as you imagine the English and indigenous people sitting down for the feast, I also scribbled down “The Pilgrims did not see the Natives as humans.”

2. If we begin the story with their journey here, the Pilgrims didn’t make good decisions. They left England on September 6, 1620. I have to quote two songs here. First, Tanya Tucker “It’s a little to late to do the right thing now!” Let’s get in an overcrowded, crappy ship with limited supplies for two months, and reach land as winter is arriving. Brilliant. They should have left in February or March, arrived in May, and planted crops so they could do this thing called “eating” all winter.
Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run features “It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap.” So was the Mayflower voyage.

3. Remember the “Rocky and Bullwinkle” show? OK, Boomer. They had a segment with Mr. Peabody and Sherman and a device called “The Wayback Machine.” Let’s go back to the Mayflower. It’s a one-hundred-foot-long ship with 102 passengers AND CREW. That’s a bit longer than a basketball court. Rooms? Ha! Restrooms? Please. Don’t even try to image the smell. This wasn’t the Love Boat.

4. Your teachers didn’t tell you the reality as a little tike for a reason. Death, and lots of it. Violence. Half of the settlers on the Mayflower died during the first year. Walking ashore from the smaller boats in December in frigid water didn’t help. Some historians believe instead of burying the bodies that the corpses were armed and stood up next to trees as guards to intimidate potential attackers. Yes, one tribe “made nice” (to be explained), but most wanted these white settlers dead.

5. The Pilgrims were considered to be “Religious Radicals.” Interpret that as you will. They were “Separatists.” Let’s just say their beliefs at the time were out of the mainstream. Beyond that, like most things in life, it gets complicated. Oh yeah, they didn’t dress in black and white with fancy buckles on their shoes.

6. Four years before the Pilgrims arrived a plague hit that area. The death rate is estimated to be 50-90%, brought by Europeans. The tribe the Pilgrims DID feast with, the Wampanoags, were decimated by disease brought by earlier white settlers. The settlers found empty buildings, supplies, and unburied bodies when they arrived.
Their chief, Ousamequin, needed a military alliance with the Pilgrims. The feast, which features venison and possibly turkey, was for far more than friendship.

7. The event happened in 1621, but 1620 is more frequently referenced today. There were a few similar feasts afterward at various times of the year. General and President George Washing issued “days of Thanksgiving,” but it was almost a quarter millennium (after the initial gathering) before Abraham Lincoln declared it an annual holiday in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War- when there really wasn’t a lot to be thankful for.

8. Myles Standish is a name I remember being taught. I can’t pound a nail straight but have a really good memory. I was curious to learn (or relearn) a few things about him. First, he was NOT the governor, William Bradford was and he penned a journal titled Of Plymouth Plantation.

I am so please that my early elementary education did NOT include more about Standish, a warrior, who once killed three Native Americans with a knife. He decapitated one, and that head was displayed at their village as a warning that these Englishmen were to not to be trifled with.

9. Ah yeah, those Plymouth colony residents. I found it intriguing that these ‘Separatists’ were NOT called “Pilgrims” until the 1880s.

10. Finally, when you have overindulged gastronomically, full of food, uncomfortably stuffed more than the poor Turkey was, you may wish to know that during the eighteenth century, there wasn’t feasting, there was fasting. Ha ha. Doesn’t make you feel better does it?

Also, there was NO pie at Plymouth. They lacked butter and wheat flour a crust, and there were no ovens.

Sorry, the truth may hurt. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!