| A
Special Thanksgiving |
| Modern-day man has long changed the original meaning and
purpose of Thanksgiving Day, which was to give thanks for
the harvest, the weather and health of their livestock. |
| To celebrate, early Americans prepared a feast of their
labor which they shared with family, friends and neighbors. |
| It's different today. We buy a prepared turkey, either fresh
or frozen, but always ready for the oven, complete with pop-up
timer. We have yams from a can and peas frozen solid; pies
from the store, potatoes from a box, cranberries from a tin
and stuffing from a bag. |
| We can even have the entire Thanksgiving dinner delivered
from a grocery store, or eat a Thanksgiving buffet at dozens
of restaurants. |
| Still, we have always given thanks for our prepared, delivered
or waiter-served Thanksgiving dinner. |
| To give thanks and to be thankful has long been a part of
the fabric of our lives. |
| As history tells us, or at least various versions of it,
in 1620 more than 100 people sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
to settle in the New World. This group had begun to question
the beliefs of the Church of England and they wanted to separate
from it and to find freedom to practice their own religion. |
| The Pilgrims, as we call them today, settled in what is
now the state of Massachusetts. Their first winter was difficult.
They had arrived too late to grow many crops and nearly half
of the new immigrants died from disease. |
| The next spring Iroquois Indians taught the immigrants how
to grow corn, which the colonists had never seen before. The
Iroquois also showed them where and how to hunt and fish and
to preserve the harvest for the winter. |
| In the fall of 1621, a bountiful crop was harvested, and
to show their thanks, the Pilgrims invited the Native American
Iroquois to share their good fortune. |
| The Indians also brought food, and although traditions have
changed through the centuries, it was the immigrants and the
Native Americans getting together to celebrate not only the
harvest but their friendship. |
| This year, 2001, poses a special challenge to find things
for which we can be thankful. The tragedy of Sept. 11 has
all of us re-evaluating the very essence of our lives. This
year there are new, maybe even more important reasons, to
give thanks. |
| We should be thankful, that, as in 1621, newly arrived immigrants
and long-established Americans can work together to produce
a bountiful harvest of friendship, cooperation, understanding
and tolerance, as well as the comforts of home and food. |
| We should be thankful for our freedom, for our liberty,
for the rights our constitution guarantees, and for the right
to fight and to protect them. |
| We should be thankful that America has long stood for justice,
for freedom to worship as we please, and to be thankful that
we will search for justice, and not be lead into the unjustified
and inhumane acts of revenge. |
| We will have to look deep into our spirits, into our hearts,
into our past and into our future to find things for which
to give thanks. But as we have since 1621, we have much to
celebrate and much to be thankful for. |
| As always, we can give thanks for freedom, for justice,
and for that pop-up timer on the prepared turkey. |
| And that's Our Town this week. |
