Thanksgiving? Texas had it first. No kidding (unless you count the Vinlanders, who probably were grateful to be out of Greenland, but left no records that they ever actually had a feast to say so — but see the comments in the posts linked at various places).
Mrs. Bathtub is in the hospital. Nothing major, but it appears the staff who should have signed her out yesterday all headed off for Turkey Day and may not return until mid-December, so Mrs. Bathtub languishes at the expense of the insurance companies because security is tight and there are only enough sheets to get her down two stories, and she’s on the third floor (and the people-with-unknown-fathers at the hospital have sealed the door to the balcony anyway — that’s got to get you thinking). So Mr. Bathtub is frantically reading the back of the Libby’s Pumpkin can, and you can imagine what antics are up in the kitchen today. Blogging will be sparse.
So it’s reprise post stuff, mostly, today. If you need more, go here:
Here’s the main reprise post, text below (there were some good comments last year); Margaritas and nachos do sound good, don’t they?
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Patricia Burroughs has the story — you New Englanders are way, way behind.
Palo Duro Canyon during inversion, Winter 2001, site in 1541 of the first Thanksgiving celebration in what would become the United States. Go here: www.visitamarillotx.com/Gallery/index3.html, and here: www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/paloduro/
Update, 11/27/2006: Great post here, “Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving.”
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Resources for 2007:
- The Butcher Carves a Turkey, video from the New York Times
- History.com ignores Texas, giving a good rundown of the old shibboleths about Pilgrims, etc., with some regard for accuracy (See the “Top 10 Myths” post above, from History News Network, too)
- Dates for Thanksgiving in the U.S. through 2013
- Canadians, claiming to have beaten the Plymouth Colony to Thanksgiving by 43 years, hold their Thanksgiving feast in October, to get all the good turkeys, I suppose, or at least the drumsticks (Canada’s Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October)
- Rachel Carson is often blamed for it, but she had nothing to do with the U.S. Department of Agriculture ban on cranberries in 1959 (Carson’s Silent Spring wasn’t published for another three years) [regular readers know why this is noted here]
- Cranberries are loaded with antioxidants, and other stuff from The Cranberry Institute
- ABC’s Good Morning America 2007 story on harvesting cranberrys
- The Food Network on stuffing
- Post explaining the real, legal and historical meaning of the Mayflower Compact — no, it doesn’t mean the U.S. is a Christian Nation.
- George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, from the Library of Congress
- Smithsonian Institution says the Cherokees beat Texas to it, and Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t proclaim it
- James Madison issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation in April 1815, as the War of 1812 was winding down — this was the last such proclamation until 1862
- Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
- Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week, for economic (“shopping”) reasons: 1939, the Year of Two Thanksgivings — from the Marist Institute, with images of original documents
- Who was first between Plymouth and Jamestown? No, the pilgrims did not tie their ship to Plymouth Rock; no, the Prudential logo is the Rock of Gibraltar, not Plymouth . . . and more travel stuff, from today’s New York Times.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
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