DanMargarita.com

The story begins in England when a group of devoutly religious and somewhat anal people separated themselves from The Church of England because they felt the church still carried too many traditions of The Roman Catholic Church including ecclesiastical courts, clerical vestments, altars and the practice of kneeling (I’m not making that up).

They decided that rather than be persecuted in England, they would be better off living in Holland but after a few years of their children being exposed to Amsterdam’s notorious “red lantern” district, they decided to try The New World where they could become the oppressors.

So the leaders told their people to buckle up their hats and jump on board The Mayflower and made their way to Plymouth, Mass. Life was brutal and half of the population died, or “perished” as they would put it, or “croaked’ as we might say today.

Upon landing, the Pilgrims proceeded to do what travelers have done throughout history---name the places you arrive at as the same places you tried so desperately to leave. Thus they settled in “Plimoth” or Plymouth as we now know it.

One day a native or “Indian” as they would be called, strolled into their camp, astonishing the settlers by saying in clear English “Whaasss uuuuppp?”

Samoset and later Squanto, befriended the colonists, teaching them how plant corn and where to fish. The Pilgrims responded by saying “Thanks” and “Don’t let the teepee flap hit you on the way out.”

Squanto proved to be a Godsend for the Pilgrims who may not have survived without his assistance. His ability to speak English, one of the few benefits of his repeatedly being kidnapped and hijacked to Europe, enabled him to broker peace between the Pilgrims and the local natives. Little did he realize that it would’ve been in his peoples’ best interest to let the Pilgrims die out.

They nearly did as out of the 102 members, ten of the seventeen male heads of families died and of the seventeen wives, only three survived making them very popular with the remaining seven surviving men.

The Pilgrims had a bountiful harvest as a result and Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and invited Squanto, Chief Massasoit and 90 braves to join in the celebration. The feast lasted three days (the hangover, longer) and featured games, presumably involving the Detroit Lions, as well as archery and musket demonstrations. Those were done at targets at the time and only later, at each other.

The Pilgrims decided that the occasion merited a special meal so they went “fowling” which would be the hunting of birds and not the yelling of obscene language or striking an opposing player to stop the game clock. Not to be outdone, the Indians sent a hunting party into the woods where they killed five deer and strapped them to the hood of…one of the other Indians.

What few people realize is that Thanksgiving did not become the official holiday we know it as now until 1939 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date as the fourth Thursday in November, a change from Abraham Lincoln’s designation of the last Thursday in November. What the two presidents had in common though was that fact that the country was at both times in great peril during their administrations. Lincoln was seeing the country torn apart by The Civil War while Roosevelt was steeped in The Great Depression and on the verge of World War II. Clearly, they both had much to be thankful for. They were able to persevere and Lincoln defeated the Confederacy while Roosevelt defeated the Nazis.

Now let’s see Stoneham beat Reading.