- This topic has 10 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 8 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Today, all America will be celebrating the holiday of Thanksgiving, or as it is known outside the United States, “Thursday.”
Families separated for months or years will reunite, and shortly afterwards they will remember why they separated. In a darkened gymnasium, Richard Simmons will run his revenue projections and consider buying a small Caribbean island. Throughout the nation, those wretched souls condemned to the public school system will breathe a bit easier, eager in their anticipation of four days surcease from education. (The students are pretty happy about it, too.)
Yet running through this gaiety is an undercurrent of bewilderment. In this decadent age we live in, far too many of our unlettered countrymen think Plymouth Rock a music style from the ’70s, or the Mayflower a potpourri ingredient. Accordingly, in the best traditions of journalistic public service and overweening arrogance, my column this frosty morn shall be dedicated to answering your questions about Thanksgiving.
Q. Gosh, you’re right. I, the average reader, am dumb as a post. What exactly are the origins of Thanksgiving?
A. Thanksgiving is, of course, a holiday invented by grocers and farmers to allow them to sell huge quantities of disgusting “traditional” foods that no one in his right mind would eat otherwise, such as squash. The average squash is a triumph of minimalism wherein Nature manages to convert mud into a plant without bothering to change its taste and texture. Attempts to improve the mud-like flavor of squash by the addition of delicate seasonings and spices have produced dishes that taste, at best, like delicately seasoned and spiced mud. A master chef, faced with the necessity of making a palatable squash dish, would throw in his funny hat and become a short-order cook at Denny’s.
Q. That’s quite a conspiracy theory. Where do the Black Helicopters fit in?
A. They transport the squash.
Q. I should have guessed. But seriously, what are the origins of Thanksgiving?
A. The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of gratitude by a group of early English settlers known as the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were Separatists who had come to the New World to practice their religion without government interference, and since the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms did not exist at the time, they were allowed to do so.
Unfortunately, the Pilgrims neglected to acquire a few skills (such as elementary agronomy) before setting off on their voyage, and as a result they nearly starved. The local Indians, who at the time were practicing their ancient sustenance methods of hunting and fishing, took pity on the Pilgrims and taught them to farm the native flora. In a display of appreciation, when the first harvest was taken in, the Pilgrims held a huge feast and invited the Indians over for dinner, after which they all fell asleep on couches while watching football.
Q. OK, but when did Thanksgiving become a national holiday?
A. Thanksgiving Day was adopted as an annual holiday by New York State in 1817, marking the first official celebration of Thanksgiving as a regular event, and the last time a New Yorker said “thank you” for anything. In 1863, President Lincoln appointed a national day of thanksgiving, and every subsequent president has followed suit.
Q. Speaking of turkeys, is it true that Ben Franklin thought the turkey should have been our national bird instead of the eagle?
A. Ben Franklin was indeed a proponent of the turkey as our national bird. Since he was a member of the Hellfire Club at the time, though, his motives were somewhat suspect.
It must be kept in mind that the modern domestic turkey bears little resemblance to its feral ancestors. The wild turkey is a cunning and elusive survivor, a challenging quarry for the most skilled of hunters. Farm turkeys, on the other hand, have been selectively inbred for generations in an attempt to improve flavor and increase breast meat production. These efforts have had numerous side effects on the birds in question, including reduced intelligence, difficulty in maintaining balance, and the creation of the Spice Girls.
Q. Is there a final message you would like to give to your readers on this Thanksgiving Day?
A. Enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner. You can have my squash.
Allisa wrote:Enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner. You can have my squash.A very entertaining and informative post-thanks!
Visit the southeastern US and sample some fried squash-it’s the only recipe that makes the vegetable edible. 😆Seriously,my family was naming things they were thankful for today and one of the things I listed was “music.” I’m also very appreciative of the bruuuce.com website.
Thanks Si, Global moderators and all the forum members for all you do to keep good music alive in the world.
Jackie
And to think – I was under the impression that Okra was the only veggie there at the feast! Great writing Allisa…Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Doh! I should clarify that I didn’t actually write the article above. It came in one of those joke-of-the-day emails and didn’t credit an author but I’d gladly give credit where it’s due if I knew who to give it to!
Happy Thanksgiving, Allisa. Where have you been keeping yourself? I called you out in my Top 10 thread…
Squash is pretty good lightly steamed with a dash of salt, by the way. Or in a cheesy casserole.
Allisa wrote:Enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner. You can have my squash.Hey Allisa! Glad you’re back!
Vic and I were about to send a posse out after you too! 😆What a great dissertation!
I agree with you on the squash thing! 😆 I also agree with Bryan on the okra thing! 😆
Even though I’m a “southern boy”, I don’t like them either! I don’t care how you fix em, they’re both “dawg food”! 😆On the other hand, I will point out as an “aggie” that pumkin is in the squash family. Where does pumkin pie fit in in all this? 😆
David Day
Lake Lanier, GADavid Day wrote:Where does pumkin pie fit in in all this? 😆I wonder if that is proper English or even the “Queen’s English”?
Is that a double prepostion or a double adverb? 😆 I forget!
Mayby some of you literary experts would know like Vic, LolaPulsa, MVP or Rich! 😆 Is that proper English? :Bruce actually does that in a song! ❗ Instead of asking what the song is like you’re use to me asking, I’ll go ahead and tell you.
In Swing Street, the lyrics that are sung are “Gotta thing going on on Swing Street”.
What’s also is interesting to me is that the printed lyrics just reed “Got a thing going on Swing Street”. Which is right? : Which is proper English? :Does this sort of mess with you brain?
: 😆Is there a name for that type of double run on?
:David Day
Lake Lanier, GAThe Only Person Near Lake Lanier that Still Has Enough Water To Flush His John wrote:I wonder if that is proper English or even the “Queen’s English”?
Is that a double prepostion or a double adverb? 😆 I forget!
Mayby some of you literary experts would know like Vic, LolaPulsa, MVP or Rich! 😆 Is that proper English? :Last time I checked, the Queen’s English, unless, of course, you’re talking about Beatrix, who’s Dutch. Now, if you’re saying that that Queen and all that are English are somehow synonymous, then you’re off on an entirely different tangent.
Then you get into the realm of words that have multiple definitions, depending on usage. For example, as a noun, “pony” means a mid-sized member of the equine family. When used as a verb and in conjunction with the word “up”, that same word means to proffer forth monies of one sort or another. On the other hand, “Cowboy Up” is a really stupid phrase that wasn’t good enough to help the Red Sox beat the Yankees.
Then, there are words that can be used in multiple ways with the same word that take on different meanings depending on the order or context that they are used. In some cases, all one need do is to swap the first letter of each of the intertwined words (or a word synonymous with one or more of them), and your meanings are entirely different.
For example, the difference between a preacher’s wife and a lady in a bathtub can be gleaned when one considers that the preacher’s wife might have hope for her soul. Similarly, the difference between a group of creative midgets and a women’s track team could be found in the description of the midgets as a bunch of cunning runts. But alas, these pearls of wisdom are nothing new – they can be found scrawled in men’s rooms across the United States, usually next to or near doggerel like “Jesus Saves” followed in a different colored ink with “and Gretzky taps in the rebound.”
Less complex, and going back to the original tangent, which was temporarily superceded by the tangential tangent, is the relationship between the words “finger” and “prick.” When separated by the word “your”, one ordering of the words is acceptable in polite company, and the other isn’t.
I hope this clarified things. If not….. I might blame it on having purchased a large cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte before I went down to see the tree lighting and fireworks in downtown Hampton this evening – or possibly the several shots of Canadian Mist that I poured into the latte before I drank it. Happy Holidays (expecially if you’re Bill O’Riley, and he’ll know why!)
– Rich
“God save the Queen. We mean it man, we love our Queen. God saves” – P. Cook, S. Jones, G. Matlock and J.Rotten
“… and Gretzky taps in the rebound” – Anoymousrdiakun wrote:I hope this clarified things. If not….. I might blame it on having purchased a large cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte before I went down to see the tree lighting and fireworks in downtown Hampton this evening – or possibly the several shots of Canadian Mist that I poured into the latte before I drank it.Now that’s it’s totaly cleared up whether it’s a preposition or an adverb and whether there’s a name for such a double run on, I can sleep better knowing that Rich has finally solved the mystery on whether squash has any redeeming social value. 😆 I’ve never thought of imbibing it in liquid form. 😆 That may have potential! 😆 😆 😆
David Day
Lake Lanier, GAPS Plenty of water still at Day’s End. Come on down sometimes!
David Day (whilst doing the backstroke and sipping a mojito through a snorkel) wrote:Plenty of water still at Day’s End. Come on down sometimes!Due to a mishap in the airport at Orlando, I was actually near your stomping grounds a few weeks ago. I remember seeing a pic of a very drained-looking Lake Lanier on the front of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
To make a short story long, I mad a valiant stab for the Indulgent Husband of the Year Award by taking my wife to Disney in Orlando as a birthday present so that she could go to ABC Super Soap Weekend. We had a wonderful flight on AirTran from Newport News to Orlando, and we were happily booked for the non-stop return trip. However, airport security in Orlando was not having one of their better days on our way back, and we got delayed such that we arrived at our flight’s gate just as they were closing the door. There were 3 of us: my wife, myself, and a priest heading to New York. My first thought was, “wow, there has to be a bar joke in this somewhere…. hmm…. a married couple and a priest walk up to the ticket counter….” While we started out the window at our plane with our empty seats pulling away and taking off, AirTran booked us on the next flight that made a connection to Newport News – featuring a plane change and a 4 hour layover in Atlanta. So, Lisa and I spent 4 insanely boring hours hanging out by the AirTran gates on concourse D, and saw what appeared to be a gorgeous sunset through a tinted glass window.
At least Bruce wasn’t waiting for a flight at the same time. After about 2 hours of hanging around, I might have been bored enough to have gone over and introduced myself by using the earlier-mentioned trouser elephant method.
Common Rich
“Get up for the down stroke” – G. Clinton
- The forum ‘General chat’ is closed to new topics and replies.