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The first Thanksgiving
Most of you are, I’m sure, familiar with the traditional story about the start of the Thanksgiving holiday. But according to the “No Significant Historical Value Whatsoever Handbook,” which is a fictional volume invented for the entertainment purposes reflected in this column, that’s not what really happened. Folks eating outside? In November? In New England? Puh-leeze. See, once upon a time there was a man named Benjamin Franklin, a man so revered that his image now appears on the front of the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin. Wait a minute. That can’t be right. His picture is on something though. Let’s see ... FLIPS THROUGH WALLET, FLIPS THROUGHWALLET, FLIPS THROUGH WALLET. Nothing but singles. LOOKING IT UP, LOOKING IT UP, LOOKING IT UP. Ah, here it is. Gee, no wonder I don’t have one. It’s on the hundred dollar bill. Now where was I? Oh yeah ... a man so revered that his image now appears on the front of the hundred dollar bill, not to mention the front of many coupons for discounts on pot-bellied stoves. SQUEALS OF PANIC FROM BARNYARD, SQUEALS OF PANIC FROM BARNYARD, SQUEALS OF PANIC FROM BARNYARD. Y’all keep it down out there. I said POT-BELLIED STOVE, not POT-BELLIED PIG. See, Benjamin Franklin was an inventor. He came up with a multitude of ideas for ingenious and time-saving devices and concepts that we still use today. For example, most people don’t know that Franklin came up with the “right turn on red” idea. Prior to then, all the horseback riders and carriage drivers had to wait until the traffic lights changed to green before they could turn right. He also came up with his own version of “reality TV.” Only back then, they called it “Reality Out In A Field.” What they would do is they would gather several people out in the aforementioned field on Saturdays and give each a task to accomplish and the first one who completed the task or whose interpretation of the task was selected as most creative by a panel of judges would be declared the winner and get to have someone else do his or her chores for the week. And it became a tradition for the villagers to, in a crude example of choreography, wave their hatchets in the air in unison in celebration of the winner. One Saturday, Franklin announced that the nation was looking for an animal to proclaim as its “official symbol” and so he sent two dozen contestants into the forest after asking them to bring back an animal, preferably alive, that they would like to nominate for this prestigious honor. They each were to use their individual trapping and hunting expertise to accomplish this task. A few hours later, the contestants returned and with them they brought a possum; a skunk (this animal was disqualified and the person who captured it disqualified AND scrubbed with yon lye soap); a turtle; a jar of ants; a rattlesnake (this animal was also disqualified when the person who captured it died of multiple bites); and 19 turkeys. And lo, none of the judges could deem any of the animals noble enough to earn the honor of national symbol. “What then,” one of the contestants asked, “shall we do with all these birds?” as onlookers waved their hatchets. Franklin looked at the birds, then looked at the hatchets, then looked at the birds, then looked at the hatchets, and ... Well, let’s just say there was some mighty fine feasting on fowl that afternoon after the villagers paused to give thanks for the bounty which they were about to receive, as well as the pot-bellied stove and the hundred dollar bill, not to mention electricity, which Franklin discovered quite by accident a few years later while trying to invent the microwave oven. Which, by the way, is not really useful for cooking skunk. (Klonie Jordan is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger. You can contact him via e-mail at editor@gaffneyledger.com) |
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