fat day
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Tonight is thanksgiving. What are we giving thanks for this year?
I'm thankful for pretty much my whole life up to this point. I'm thankful for my future prospects. I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for my friends. I'm thankful for turkey.
I'm very thankful for the turkey.
To the best of my recollection (and its been a decade since I was in an american education system), thanksgiving represents a huge dinner that the injuns had with the pilgrims, and the pilgrims were real thankful because, well, they were kinda dumb and didn't know how to kill a turkey (and turkeys ain't real bright creatures themselves).
I think its a glorious holiday. I love eating, I love my friends, I love eating with my friends and I especially love not having to lift a finger to help make it happen!
But I think back to my american school days, I remember the stories being told. We, us merry few, with gleaming eyes and sparkling teeth, we sat and listened and history played out before us.
Scene 1: Pilgrims land. Happy Happy.
Scene 2: Pilgrims meet Injuns. Happy Happy.
Scene 3: Injuns cook, Pilgrims watch football on tv. Happy Happy.
Scene 4: Big dinner. Happy Happy.
It was a somewhat merry story. However it is just a story. I hate to play 'X-gen cynic', but that's a story playing as history. I don't really think its healthy for the kids. I mean... that's not how it happened. Didn't you see Pocahontas? It quickly erases all the bad vibes history there. Now, I know the real story is not so happy happy and not as well suited to a festivity, but perhaps it should be presented as what it is, a story.
Now I feel bad. I mean, to kids, thanksgiving is the time when they collect leaves to glue to sparkly paper that they've traced their hand and drawn a turkey on. Try saying that really fast. I don't want thanksgiving to turn into a memorial day, where we mourn as we watch documentaries telling the tale of the injun's plight (narrated by the cheif from one flew over the coockoo's nest). I like it as a fiesta, but lets make it more like Christmas (the Coca-Cola holiday). Turn the story into a story, and put pilgrim faces on Pepsi cans.
Goddam it, I feel like the Grinch again.
There is no conclusion here. If you don't celebrate Thanksgiving - and some of you don't - you should start tonight. There are no presents, but there's turkey to share!
you're that much closer to knowing me.
[ 0 of you have something to say ]
[ say something ]