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The True Story of Thanksgiving.
As interpreted by Wayne
Rice
'Bout 400 years ago,
ovah in Plymouth theah, sum feriners beached their boat and
set out to settle in these heah pahts. Couldn'ta picked a
worse time t' show up. Wintah was jist startin' up, they'd
missed theyah landfall by hundreds and hundreds of miles, no
one would evah know wayah they went oft ta; they were in a
fix. Furst yeah was a tough'n; half of 'em died; not enough
food, n' poorly livin' conditions n' all. The locals round
'bout took theyah time about helpin' out, but they came
round and brought some food 'n advice on how t' get by all
right. Couple of locals, Samoset n' Squanto, took pity on 'em
an hepped 'em out with local secrets, like potato chips n'
lobstah. That second wintah, things went bettah so come
Fall, they had a three day pahty with the locals. Lots of
vittles n' the like; they say that heah in New England, on
Thanksgiving Day no birds fly,
because on that day in Novembah there were
also no birds in the sky, 'cause the locals shot 'em all out
of the sky n' et 'em. Theyah was venison, and eel, berries
and clams t' et. they had contests of shootin, n' strength,
'n what not. They got along pretty well, I heah. Too hahd
to git through the wintah then t' bother with makin extra
trouble. But theyah's another story that goes; the first
“Thanksgiving" was in 1623; seems that theyah troubles
didn't stop just because
of a big meal. The wintahs were severe n'
the other seasons were all drouted out. Hahdly any rain
a'tall. The Saints and the Strangahs, as they called
themselves, held a joint pray-in and aftah days and days of
it, the drought broke, and they had a big pahty n' called
Thanksgivin Day. Most wintahs in New Englan are hahd, but
those brave Pilgrims had some of the hahdest, all alone in a
new world. That furst spirit of cooperation and integration
is still to be found heah. New Englandahs see to a balance
in their lives that was passed down from those original
Pilgrims; that havin' a healthy dose of self-interest still
leaves room to keep a eye
towards the welfare of others, through a personal sense of
responsibility. Nothin' showy or over done, just a
straight-forward 'howyadoin'?" is all it takes. Still have
Thanksgiving though; course, usually everybody brings
somthin' n' uncle Teddy falls asleep on the couch in front
of the football game on the HDTV, but otherwise it's pretty
much the same on Thanksgivin' Day down heah in old New
England. |
