Once Upon a Thanksgiving

Alright, here's my Thanksgiving story for Lori:

A long time ago in a land far, far away (9 hours on U.S. Air) there was a land called England. Before it became famous for double-decker busses, policemen with funny hats, and fish and chips England was the center of the Anglican church. Now, the Anglican church had some issues and there were some people who thought that the Anglican church was too close to the Catholic church and replacing a King for a Pope wasn't a good switch. (However, the King beat the Pope in a wrestling match, and being men of good sportsmanship, the leaders of England felt it was only fair to let the King rule the church. Maybe they should have let God rule it. Then they wouldn't have had that problem.) Anyway, there were those who believed that the Bible was the sole source of authority and the Anglican church wasn't working the way the church was supposed to operate. These people became known as "separatists" and many of them decided to move to Holland to form a church and escape persecution from England.
These Pilgrims, as they are now called, jumped on a boat and settled themselves in Holland and lived there for 12 years. Now, although the Pilgrims really liked Holland with their pretty tulips and elaborate system of keeping all their inhabitants from drowning by a system of canals and dikes and levees: (
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maybe it was because Holland was too windy with all their windmills or maybe it was because the Pilgrims were always confused about whether they were from "Holland" or "The Netherlands" or why the naitonality of "Dutch" had nothing to do with either of those words or maybe (and most probably) it was the Pilgrims were concerned about their children growing up in a more immoral place than they wanted and they were afraid their culture would get mixed up into Dutch culture, after 12 years the Pilgrims decided to say "Tot ziens " (goodbye) to Holland and get a charter from the the wrestling champion and join the Virginia company to go to America where they would create a "city on a hill." (A rock would have to do.)
So about 100 pilgrims boarded a boat called the "Mayflower" which was departed neither in May, nor with any flowers. However, the name "Mayflower" did provide the punchline to a popular children's joke in America that annoys young and old alike: "If April showers bring May flowers, what do may flowers bring? Pilgrims." Yes. Thank you.
The Pilgrims had a long, hard journey aboard the Mayflower. The boat rocked back and forth and lots of them got sea sick. Many of them had forgotten their toothbrushes and their cellphones didn't get service out in the middle of the Atlantic, so they sacrificed a lot to get there. Some of them also died along the way. But 65 days later, on December 20th, 1620, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in present day Massachusettes. The Pilgrims were in bad shape because it was December and over half of them died that winter. But that next year native American Indians helped the Pilgrims grow food and they had plenty for winter.

One of these Indians was named Squanto and I remember that because I had to do a report on him in elementary school and I had to paint him in art class. Governor William Bradford decided that there should be a "day of thanksgiving" that fall to thank God for all he had provided them with.
He said that it was a day to "listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings." (You can say that with an English accent or add more "ye"'s and "thou's" to it to make it sound more Shakespearean.)
So the Indians and Pilgrims had a big party and ate so much food they probably got sick, but those that didn't had a dance, dance marathon behind the barn and turned on some Toby Mac. The first chicken dance was actually the turkey dance and the Pilgrims invented that too. And then at the very end some little guy named Tom or something said, "God bless us every one." He walked with kind of a limp because he had danced too hard to "let's get this party started." But everybody still thought he was really cute and his dad got to keep his job.
So that's about it.

This thanksgiving let's remember to count our blessings and realize that ham, corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce could not and were not on the menu in 1621. But we'll eat them anyway.


Arrivederci!