Like turkey sandwiches, reheated mashed potatoes and the last piece of pumpkin pie that no one wants to eat because the top of the pie is beginning to shrivel and separate from its crust like some sort of earthquake fault, I deliver to you a rehashed and reheated blog. Hopefully it doesn't turn your stomach enough so that you can't enjoy today's fare. I've sent this out the day before Thanksgiving in years past and due to my busyness-- as well as forgetfulness-- I spaced out. So keeping in the tradition of being a day late and a dollar short, here you go, and enjoy. I edited it so it appears that I wrote it today. How's THAT for being clever!?
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!
===
'Tis time again to loosen the belt and shovel
in food in celebration of everything thankful. Yesterday
millions of Americans traveled by plane,
train or automobile to see friends and family in
preparation of a dinner today where we all give
thanks for what we have, if for nothing more than the
fact that we're not the bird on the table.
Like such traditions and classics as "Alice's
Restaurant" (OK, i'm dating myself here and revealing
to all that I grew up with parents who still think of
the 1960's as "groovy"), the Detroit Lions losing and
highway traffic jams, the following tedious email is a
mish-mosh of past Hump Day columns centering around
Thanksgiving. And, like "Alice's Restaurant", it goes
on way too long and has little or no point. But here
goes.
Today is one of the greatest days of the year as we
all get to give thanks for what we have and who we get
to spend it with. We do this by arguing over who is
supposed to do what, ingesting three meals worth of
turkey and fixings in about 6 1/2 minutes and then
falling asleep in a food coma, dreaming of how
thankful we are. Then tomorrow, most people spend the
day seeing other people... in line at the mall as the
official Holiday Shopping season begins.
As every redblooded American knows, the
Thanksgiving "holiday" is a three-day festival which
accurately portrays what our pilgrim forefathers did
back in the 1620's when they pahked their cahs on
Plymouth Rock (not really a big rock for those of you
who never saw it):
Wednesday (ysterday)- getting out of work early and
joining up at an area bar to get totally smashed and
pick a fight with some guy who dated the girl you
liked in high school. Just like the pilgrims who saw
Indians and decided to start shooting them to "make
peace".
Thursday- Hungover, some younger folks would attend
the traditional rival high school football game and
make up with the people they got in a fight with.
Then, lots of turkey and stuffing and sleeping on the
couch watching football. Just like the pilgrims who
then decided that killing wasn't all that cracked up
to be and made peace by having dinner with them, while
John Alden talked to Chief Massasoit and traded a
crock pot of yams for land that today is known as
"Rhode Island".
Friday- Either calling in sick to work, if it already
hasn't been canceled and then budgeting the Christmas
spending budget to somehow buy presents for 20 people
and spend approximately $50, not including the $62.99
you're spending on yourself for a new NFL football
jersey. Why the Patriots don't play the Redskins every
Thanksgiving is beyond me.
Women have a similar version, except it usually
involves getting in a fight with several old high
school friends (who are now, according to the women,
"fat") and budgeting several times the allotted amount
for people, including some they don't even know.
Thanksgiving to me means a little more since I grew up
in the cranky-yankee area of New England, where
Thanksgiving was "discovered". I've been privy to
witness great historical relics and achievements, such
as the Freedom Trail, the Freedom Big-Dig Tunnel, and
various new Dunkin Donuts construction. I didn't grow
up in Boston but rather Western Massachusetts, (which
Bostonians refer to as "friggin faah") yet shared such
eastern Massachusetts customs as creating needless
construction projects like repairing a bridge that
seemed to work perfectly fine, cutting public
education budgets, and erecting statues to Ted
Kennedy, paid for by the Coalition to Cut Public
Education Funding.
New Englanders are, by tradition, irritable and
abrasive by nature. Much of this irritability is due
to the fact that New England, specifically
Massachusetts, is the "oldest child" of the United
States. Useless States that came out long after
Massachusetts, like Utah, Colorado and North Dakota,
got all sorts of benefits that Massachusetts didn't,
like straight borders and two-way divided highways.
What does this all have to do with Thanksgiving? Take
it easy, I'm getting there, and now will give you the
National Enquirer version of how Thanksgiving came to
be, since you want to know.
If you refer to your history books, which I know you
won't, you'll see that New England was first inhabited
by the Pilgrims for Limited Taxation. The pilgrims,
tired of the oppressive King who hated their funny
black hats, set sail on Mayflower Van Lines and landed
in Boston, only to find that construction diverted all
ships south of the city, and thus ended up in
Plymouth, named after the Volare that one of the
Pilgrims, nicknamed "Sully", drove. They celebrated
their journey at a tavern called The Rock (Sideline
here-- if you've never been to Plymouth, for some
reason the Hysterical-- I mean Historical Society of
Plymouth chooses to spell the name of the town
"Plimoth", for no reason other to create the need for
someone with nothing else to do to go to the
historical society HQ and ask why). Immediately upon
arrival, the pilgrims built triple-decker houses,
liquor stores and Chinese restaurants. Rather than
waste needless energy that could otherwise be spent
repressing people, they let their horses run free and
make up the roads in the town, the reason why today it
is virtually impossible to find a straight road longer
than 10 feet anywhere in Eastern Massachusetts. They
built these domiciles along side of these curvy roads
and homage to this architecture is found today in a
land called the South Shore (South Shore motto: "We
are not the North Shore").
Of course the pilgrims weren't the first inhabitants
of Plymouth or America in general. Native Americans,
who were called Indians until one of the pilgrims who
actually hailed from India, Ahmed Abdul-Rahim Johnson,
objected, roamed the land and had crazy ideas like
building casino and selling cheap cigarettes. Pilgrims
wanted the land for themselves and thought it might be
best to fight these Indians for their lands. But
instead, the pilgrims built toll-bridges to gain
entrance to this new land and the Indians, who were of
course penniless, were forced to retreat to a land now
called Foxwoods. However, today we salute these
Indians by naming all of our rivers and lakes after
them and today they get the get the last laugh by
hearing motorists try and pronounce the name
"Pemiwagassetaweebawopashishboomba River" as they
drive in rotting bridges over these bodies of water,
on their way to deposit their money in area casinos*.
*- A casino was founded by Indians as a way to pay for
those aforementioned tolls.
The leader of the pilgrims, Johnny Massachusetts,
proclaimed this new land his own, and had his buddies
Fred Braintree, Darren "too tall" Dedham, Josiah
Weymouth, Bill Rica, Tom Finneran (whoops) and two
guys just nicknamed "Sully" go off in the land and
found their own villages. Each agreed that for one day
a year they would all gather in Plymouth with their
Native American casino breathren, have a nice meal and
give Thanksgiving, and then try and destroy each
other's football teams the next day.
So this year, as you sit down at your table wherever
you are, carve into the bird, grab a spoonful of
potatoes and a forkful of stuffing, be thankful of the
many blessings you have and enjoy.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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