Today's Thanks

Published on 11/23/23 2:30 AM

Today America commemorates Pilgrims’ gratitude to the local Indians lessons in food-gathering, especially those tribesmen of Squanto. who helped the religious refugees survive that first year in Plymouth. In response to this unexpected aid the settlers held a 3-day feast for their neighbors. The holiday was made official in 1789 by George Washington, although Squanto’s tribe had nearly vanished from Massachusetts and Indians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.

Neither do I.

Even though I am a Mayflower descendant.

There was a Thanksgiving parade in New York this morning. I saw none of it. High school footballs between bitter rivals will be played this morning. I haven't seen the results between my high school and their North Shore rival. I've yet to leave my house, but I do have things to be thankful for this year.

I survived a liver transplant.

I am alive.

I make some money.

My children are healthy.

Sirinthip loves me sometimes.

So does Aphinya.

Every fourth Thursday of November Americans travel by train, plane, and car to feast with friends and family on turkey and all the fixings. Once their bellies expand to a girth of near-explosion, the men watch a meaningless football game in a stupor mimicking a boa who has swallowed a goat, while women repair to the kitchen.

Being male I have no idea what they do other than clean dishes and pots and recount old familar tales of youth, families and friends. Younger children are happy to gorge themselves on pies, while their older siblings sullenly vow to not end up like their parents.

Like all holiday the situation is prime for a good argument.

Eight years ago my father cautioned my lovely twenty year-old niece that she wouldn’t lose weight, if she ate any more pie. Sensitive about her size she broke into tears. My older brother demanded an apology. My father adamantly said he was only telling the truth.

My brother ordered him to leave the house.

My father grabbed a turkey leg and exited from the house, plowing his car across the lawn rather than wait for anyone to move their vehicles out of the driveway.

I would have really like to have seen his tires plowing furrows in the grass, except I was in New York. No turkey that year either.

I celebrated the holiday alone.

Google Goggle Hey Goggle Hey to paraphrase the Ramones.

Max’s Kansas City had turkey dinner for the punk orphans during the 1970s.

Free too.

Beer half-price.

Today I'm dining with Professor Ollamn, the famed Marxist, and his son Raoul.

Praise be the Turkey.

And those sexy Pilgrims.

Glatt Thanksgiving

The Brownist English Dissenters fled their homeland in the 16th and 17th Century to escape religious persecution by the Church of England, which worsened with the return of the Catholic Stuarts' return to the throne. Leyden in Holland welcomed the refugees, but the Puritans led a precarious economic existence in the Netherlands, whose people were deemed to be libertines by the strict Separatist adherents. The leaders furthered endangered the exiled community with Scottish intrigue and the English ambassador demanded the arrest of the Church elders.

The dilemma was resolved by contracts establishing of a Puritan colony in the New World. It was a good deal for both parties. The Crown was happy to be rid of the malcontents in Holland and the Pilgrims were glad to be free of the immorality of the Old World.

In July of 1620 two ships attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean. My relative John Howland was washed overboard, but grabbed a topsail halyard and was hauled back aboard. Upon landing on the new shores the Pilgrim set up the puritanical Plymouth Colony, which dominated the Massachusetts Bay for decades to come.

They were never known for their good times and the other day I was walking through Brooklyn's Hassidistan with a New England friend, who commented, "You know the Hassidic men dress like your Pilgrim ancestors. Weird black hats, beards, and short trousers."

"I hadn't thought of that, but you're right."

The Hassidim's attire dated back to noble fashion of 16th Century Poland.

"Maybe the Pilgrims were a lost tribe of Israel."

"I don't think so. The Puritans' prejudice against the Jews had been criticized by John Adams, the second president of the United States."

"Maybe, but the Pilgrims and Hassidim do look alike."

"In dress only."

"The Pilgrims were fundamentalist too."

"Okay, we're Jews. The secret is out. Plymouth was the first Jewish Colony in the New World."

"No reason to get all hot about it."

"You're right. That was a long time ago."

I didn't mention that one of our people had been hang by the English for his religious beliefs, mostly because I have none and it's Thanksgiving, when all the Pilgrims thanked the Native Tribes for saving them that next winter of 1621.

And Turkey is always Glatt Kosher, but rabbits never, because they don't have split hooves.