Fairfax, VA, USA. One hundred and fifty-five years before the Declaration of Independence by the thirteen united States of America, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared a harvest feast in the autumn of 1621.

Wild fowl and venison were on the menu of a wild rumpus of a festival that lasted three days (well, wild for them).


For more than two centuries, the individual American colonies and states celebrated various days of thanksgiving. Then, in October, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. In the year 2011 of the Common Era, despite the wars and the recessions, there are still many things for which we should be thankful.



Sure, the 1621 harvest feast shared by the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians is often cited as the first Thanksgiving in what was to become the USofA, but what would be the Commonwealth of Virginia routinely had Thanksgiving services as early as 1607.

The founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia codified a day of Thanksgiving in 1619.

Even the Spanish could lay down a prior claim, citing a party on September 8, 1565 in (what is now) Saint Augustine, Florida.

Well then, maybe speaking English matters. If so, then the harvest feast and celebration at Plymouth, Massachusetts was the very first Northeastern American harvest feast celebrated in Northeastern America — in English.

But then came Abraham Lincoln, who issued a presidential proclamation for Thanksgiving Day in 1863. The first observance arrived one week after dedicating the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg.
Download PDFBruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be putting out an disc of new songs and are planning to tour in support of it. It is not too early to start saving your money to buy a couple of tickets up close and personnel.

Although, at this point, Bruce is a lot closer to being someone’s grandfather that is he is the brash kid from New Jersey who was going to save Rock and Roll from itself. I imagine he will be doing concerts when he is ninety.

Speaking of steel wheeled wheel chairs, the Rolling Stones will soon be celebrating their Fiftieth Anniversary as a group and they can still kick butt when they want to. They just to seem to want to anymore.

I know it’s only rock and roll, but I do like it. I can’t be all that old if the Stones are still putting out. In any event, I am less wrinkled than Richards, Jaeger, or Wyman.

Of course, so is most anyone.

We all should be thankful that most of us fall somewhere between the one percent and the ninety-nine. I don’t know anyone who seems to be rich. We’re all just sort of living from paycheck to paycheck. But I’m alive and so are you, so let’s be thankful, shall we?

I’m sorry if you can’t afford a new iPad and iPhone when they come out each year but you should take it up with Mr. Jobs. Oh, that’s right, Steve’s dead and you are not.

I am thankful that, at the most, Barack Obama will be in office for five more years (and most of that he will be a lame duck with less political power than he has today. Two terms is more than enough for anybody and one term, way too much for some.

God bless the United States and our glorious Constitution that limits the power of our elected representatives and leaders. No one is infallible, especially those who think they are the gods’ gift to Democracy.

I am thankful that it’s unlikely that Newt Gingrich, Herbert Cain, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann or Rick Santorum will be elected President next November. Thank heavens for small favors and a long road to the nomination.

Obviously I could be more thankful if a Lincoln, an Eisenhower, or even a Reagan were available to run. But that doesn’t seem to be in the cards and we will have to make do with a deck chockfull of jokers and one-eyed jacks.

What we really need is a new deck and good shuffle. I wouldn’t bet a nickel on the current hand.

Not that we all should not thankful that in a year’s time, we will be choosing a new President of the United States. Something we’ve done every four years since 1789. We will do it again in 2012 no matter how idiotic our choices might be.

I have lived more than a handful of decades and have not seen a hostile nuclear detonation. This may all change within the decade but for now, I am thankful and have done my job. Your mileage may vary.

Be thankful for what you have less you wake up to find the world aglow with Strontium 90 and Plutonium 239.

Born several years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I remain thankful that I am not a shadow on some wall in the forbidden zone.

In no particular order we should be thankful for Open Source software, the Android Operating System, MP3 recordings and digital playback, videos on demand, Heritage Turkeys, Jameson Irish Whiskey, Maker’s Mark Bourbon, Sangiovese wine, red tomatoes and russet potatoes, chocolate, peanuts, and the game of baseball, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and the fifty united States of America, Groucho Marx and Monty Python, and the antibiotic that saved my life.

The list is nowhere close to being complete. We are alive and should be thankful.

And now for something completely different:

A Prayer of Thanks

Thank all the men who killed this turkey,
Drove them to the store for me to buy;

Thank all the women who cooked these turkeys,
Made all the fixin’s for their men to eat;

Thank all the vegans for not eating any turkey,
Leaving them all for the rest of us to feast;

And thank this land for producing such a bird
That sits here upon our tables on this day.

Feel free to use it on Thanksgiving when you gather family around the table. An be thankful you weren’t born a Tofurky.

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