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It is a sort of a foul day here in Massachusetts (the state is named after Massasoit (or Ousamequin), the Grand Sachem or leader of the Wampanoag Confederacy in the early 1600s) as I’m working on this very blog here at a local hotel.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve spent Thanksgiving at a hotel, having attended two of the Visions conventions (a now defunct Doctor Who and various British TV show convention that also covered Blake’s 7, Red Dwarf, Robin of Sherwood, etc.) in Chicago in 1991 and 1992.

I’d like to pause and reflect on the actual historical underpinnings of this hugely popular U.S. holiday, just like I did for St. Patrick’s Day, and have come to the same conclusion: most Americans don’t fully understand the actual history behind some of these holidays. First of all, let’s get right into to the real controversial stuff, ’cause I like causin’ trouble! 😃

As much as the locals here in Massachusetts think that Plymouth is “America’s Hometown”, it just ain’t, folks.

Of course the Native Americans were already here and the Spanish and the French had set up colonies way before the English.

Just as Tony Horwitz points out in his excellent and humorous book A Voyage Long and Strange, towns like St. Augustine or Jamestown should have that (possibly dubious) honor:

I had to resist quibbling with shopkeepers whose T-shirts bore Plymouth’s moto: “America’s Home Town.” Not to Virginians it isn’t. Or to Hispanics, or Indians.

And then there’s the actual event itself in 1621, which according to historical records wasn’t even considered a big deal at the time, and only occupies two paragraphs in the written records. According to Horwitz:

They didn’t record its date or call it thanksgiving, which to Calvanists signified a solemn religious observance. They didn’t even specify turkey as one of the dishes served.

The Plymouth settlers sent four men out “fowling”, but it is uncertain what they actually shot, it could have been turkey but it also could have been ducks or geese.

And the Indians weren’t invited to the feast. Wachem Massasoit and ninety men of the tribe came to the “party” unannounced. Because there wasn’t enough food to go around they had to go out and hunt deer, fish fish (I love redundant sh*t! 😋) and harvest maize.

And the usual attire ascribed to the Pilgrims is basically wrong. Horwitz:

The male Pilgrim stereotype-black clothes, tall stiff-brimmed hat adorned with a buckle-was rich person’s attire, the stuff of portraits, not daily life. Plymouth’s settlers were mostly modest country folk [who wore things like] a floppy hat, loose pants, and a shapeless jacket, all the color of dead leaves [for men at least].

The whole holiday is essentially a classic retcon initially instigated by Sarah Josepha Hale, a New Hampshire native who had written “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.

She had campaigned for the New England holiday to become a national holiday for years in the mid-nineteenth century until she persuaded then president Abraham Lincoln to proclaim that the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, actually to commemorate the sacrifices made for the Union in the bloody conflict.

According to Wikipedia:

In her novel Northwood: Or, a Tale of New England, Hale devotes an entire chapter to describing the many dishes of Thanksgiving—roasted turkey, gravy and savory stuffing, chicken pie, pumpkin pie, pickles, cakes and preserves—and to drink ginger beer, currant wine and cider.

That’s great, because I love me my ginger beer! 🙂

Aside: Boy is the hotel lobby music annoying, I’ve basically had to wear earplugs for the whole time I’ve been working in their “business center”, which is actually in the lobby itself! 😕

But that somewhat irritating experience was mitigated by a rather tasty and nourishing “Thanksgiving” meal served in the hotel restaurant.

And that was complimented by the NY Giants vs Dallas Cowboys football game on the vidscreen, which was both a good and a bad thing.

Good because it featured the ever popular Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders at half-time.

Bad because the Giants were playing which meant that George R.R. Martin was watching the game, and if he was watching football he wasn’t writing The Winds of Winter. 😒 That just plain sucks! 😕

Actually I’m sure The Winds of Winter will come out. But unfortunately, A Dream of Spring will always remain that, a fevre dream in the mind of a fictitious man, just like a “holiday” in the manufactured history of a soon to be forgotten country, ’cause when Trump activates the nuclear arsenal, we’ll all be air-fried like a doomed November turkey.

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We’ll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

The late, great Tom Lehrer.