Happy Thanksgiving...

...to all here in the good old US of A, regardless of religion, nationality, ethnicity and so on. This is a holiday for all, not only a Christian Holiday as some believe it. After all, the native Americans who celebrated it with the Pilgrims were not Christian. Granted, George Washington was Christian and it was he who proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving thus in essence establishing this as a national holiday and as a day that we should all be thankful to our creator for what we have been given of earth's bounty. It is truly amazing how few times George Washington is brought into the picture by so called historians when it comes down to his influence on our nation celebrating this holiday. They simply seem to forget all about him and the proclamation (click on image to enlarge to readable size) he made, on October 3, 1789, in the capital of our nation - New York City. Many people today seem to think that the official Thanksgiving holiday was created by Franklin D. Roosevelt. That is simply not true; he simply set the day as the fourth Thursday in November.

Regardless of how or why it was first celebrated and then turned into a national holiday, I have to say it is absolutely my favorite current national holiday. It could only be surpassed by Halloween and Ground Hogs' Day if they were ever made into national holidays. In fact, the bestest all time holiday of forever is absolutely Ground Hogs' Day (love the movie too). One of these days, when that little booger sticks his head out the hole, I am going to blast him and have woodchuck for dinner (yes there is some influence from Caddy Shack there).

But I digress, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, I will be busy baking apple pie, making the stuffing (bagel, potato bread, whole grain bread, English muffin, tart apples, green onion [scallions], sliced almonds, cranberries [used to use raisins] and lots of butter with hints of some spices like cinnamon added to the mix), preparing and cooking the bird (all 18 plus pounds, the wife did say to get a small one and that was the smallest one they had at Costco today) and possibly making some of the side dishes (although the missus may be doing that). We have a load of butternut squashes left over from our garden and I am hopeful she will make her recipe of that, it is out of this world delicious. I will also be imbibing some finer spirits as I do so. After our dinner, I am going to visit my mom and bring dinner to her.

I always enjoy Thanksgiving. It is truly one of the finer celebrations of them all and one that all should celebrate even if not religious. While most will give thanks to God for what they have, you can also give thanks to nature, or even to your bread winner, for the good things provided to us.

Enjoy your day, enjoy your dinner, hopefully you are spending it with loved ones as am I. For me, the only thing that can make the day better is if they show The March of the Wooden Soldiers (originally called Babes In Toyland) on TV and I get to watch it; it was a Thanksgiving Day regular all throughout my younger years. Already corny by the time I was a young child, it was released in 1934 over 20 years before I was born, but it was and remains one of my all time favorite movies. Now that I think of it, I may have to check NetFlix to see if I can download it. Of course, Thanksgiving is not complete without also listening to Alice's Restaurant if you live up this way. Local NYC radio stations used to play it every Thanksgiving, and probably still do, at 12 noon. I get a kick out of this song; it is a good one and then again its views of the draft and pointless wars do agree with my views at that, though probably not for the same reasons. If you have never heard it, give it a listen but mind you it has strong liberal political overtones. It was a pointed barb aimed at the government and the draft and later seen to have been aimed at conservatives even though liberals started the war and prosecuted and escalated it then tried to blame it all on the conservative who ultimately ended it. Typical liberal BS to do that but the song is a good song. Mind you also, it is a long song, a really long one at about 18 minutes.

Thankfully, Babes In Toyland has no overt political overtones even though it deals with war of a sorts if only on a fantasy level. Mostly, and more importantly, it is simply a nice story about right winning out over wrong and about being able to tell the difference between the two. It was from a time when it actually may have been simpler to tell that difference while Alice's Restaurant came at a time when it was not so simple. Alice's Restaurant makes you think about right and wrong too, it's just not quite as easy to decide what is right and what is wrong while listening to it. Whatever, both are or were Thanksgiving traditions for me - then I grew up. Funny, I still like them both but as always, I like The March of the Wooden Soldiers best. It too bad it is not always as easy to tell the difference between right and wrong in the real world as it was in Toyland. Yet, each Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I have mostly gotten it right throughout my life.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Glenn B