Some Thanksgiving Thoughts.

 Way back in the 1600s, a group of people landed in the lands of the Wampanoag people and set up a camp.

Their camp rapidly became a village with log buildings. In that first winter, the invaders suffered much from the harsh winter and lack of proper food. In the spring, some of the locals found them and took pity upon them. They were not Christians, but they still had the spirit of charity within them and they made peaceful contact with the newcomers. The first nation people probably would have driven the whites into the sea at the point of a spear had they been "real Christians" but they did not. They took pity on the newcomers, and helped them to learn how to live off the land. How to catch fish, and to fertilize their crops with it. How to plant and grow maize. How to hunt the local animals and which ones provided the best meat. Somewhere in there, the locals found how to hunt the local wild turkeys and geese. (There are variations on this story where they brought the newcomers birds and maize but I'm going with this one.) The next fall, a hunting party of Wampanoag were in the vicinity of the white settlement and decided to check up on them. In gratitude for having been saved and aided by them, the Europeans invited the visitors to stay for the harvest feast. This then became known as the First Thanksgiving. If only the people of the First Nations and the European immigrants had learned from this example. But they did not. In the fullness of time the prediction often attributed to various leaders, that "in 300 years my people will be a vanishing breed, a footnote in the story of the continent." They did not vanish, but are less today than they were. Today the holiday is one in which we traditionally gather our families and celebrate the holiday, at least ostensibly giving thanks for the good things that came our way, and for having family to celebrate with. I am reminded of the time, some 50 years ago, when my Dad and my Uncle both finished eating at about the same time, and both had the same idea to make for the couch in the den at the same time. They both tried to be nonchalant about it, but this lasted about 4 paces, as my Dad went thundering into the Den, steps ahead of my Uncle. Dad got their first, but it would not have mattered, as it was Dad's house. Meanwhile, I just quietly asked my Mother if I could be excused (in the early 70s, table manners were still a thing, and kids who sat at the grownups table had to ask to be excused.) and then quietly went into the living room and took over the couch in there. Everyone else was too busy trying to find suitable seating in line of sight to a television and never considered just napping in the nice, cool, quiet of the living room. Funny how memory comes back like that. I will close by saying that I wish any who read this a happy holiday, and a quiet, safe, and healthy weekend.