If you are from the US of A, then you’ve heard the official story of Thanksgiving a million times. Some pilgrims take a boat across the Atlantic. They get out of the boat, kiss Plymouth Rock and put their shoe buckles in the water as they make their way across the beach. They didn’t realize it would be so cold, so they didn’t bring any sweaters. They prayed to God to save them from the cold, but it didn’t work and most of them died. Very sad. Short visit. So long.

But there is far more to the story than we are led to believe. It began in England in the year 1610, on a Tuesday. A man named Eli Rappaport carried a large suitcase across the dank streets of London, hailed a coach at the corner of Lexington and Maybury, got off on the corner of Marple and Simmons, then walked into the nearest pub. There he met Jonathan Smythe, a tall, good looking, religious young man wearing a funny hat with a buckle on it. The conversation went like this:

Rappaport: Be thee Smythe?

Smythe: Indeed.

Rappaport: Spell thy name so I know it be thee.

Smythe: S-M-I-T-H

Rappaport: Close enough. Here this be for thee.

Smythe: Be that the money for our journey to the New World?

Rappaport: Yes. It be a boatload of booty, so don’t blow it. Get the supplies thou needs, take some good looking women along with thee. Thou dost not want the ugly ones, lest thou populate the new land with ugly children. That would be a disservice to mankind, got it? Oh yeah, and be sure to buy winter wear. It gets very cold.

Smythe: (not being able to resist a set-up) How cold doth it get, Sir?

Rappaport: It gets so cold that thou canst catch frozen fish from the lakes and eat them in the middle of summer. Good day, Sir.

At this, Rappaport left the suitcase, tipped his hat and disappeared out into the busy street. Smythe rubbed his bristly chin and smiled. He peaked inside the suitcase and set his blue eyes upon more money than most people had seen in two lifetimes (not counting the Dalai Lama, who for obvious reasons, had seen more or less money over many lifetimes).

Within a month, Smythe was sailing across the Atlantic. He took three ships and one was lost at sea with all the crew and cargo. Sad. Very sad. At long last, sick of the sea, the first mate in the crow’s nest aboard the main ship known as Prince Eddy, called out, “Land ho!” In two hours time, the Prince Eddy ran aground off the coast of New England. Within a month of this, two hundred men and 133 women and 44 children had made their home along the beach. Five goats, a single cow, three chickens, four potted plants, a minstrel named Icky, seven dogs and a lamb were also brought ashore. Everybody settled in wooden structures called log cabins. They were crappy buildings because the construction trade hasn’t changed in 500 years. The roofs leaked, the walls creaked, the plumbing was non existent and you couldn’t get good reception. The wind blew right through the house so that if you lit a candle, it blew out a second later. The most common expression amongst the pilgrims became “Hey, there’s a draft in here.” It got to be an inside joke.

Let’s not leave out the Native Americans. They were to be found through the bushes, through the forest and up on the right. One of the main natives was Hojept, a friendly, stocky fellow who knew how to grow corn. His wife, Antoop, made baskets and taught the white women how to create hats and silly little figurines out of straw. She also warned of an impending famine. “You better listen to Hojept,” said Antoop, “he knows how to grow stuff. In fact, he grew corn, zucchini, Romano tomatoes, squash and this.” Antoop produced a large, strange looking bird. “It’s a turkey,” she said. The women put their tiny, blistered hands over their mouths and giggled softly.

“Don’t laugh,” said Antoop. “This bird can feed twelve. And it tastes like, you know, so good.”

“What’s that rubbery red thing under his neck?” asked Lucy DiPalma.

“It’s a wobbly gobbly,” said Antoop with a straight face. (She actually had no idea of what it was called.)

Now we move you on three more months. It’s the end of November and the white people are starving to death. They’ve taken to eating the walls off their log cabins. The women were making baked sand and tree bark soup. The men were complaining that they weren’t gettting enough sex. This had nothing to do with anything.

Finally, peering over a hedge on November 28th, Hojept noticed three white men in stupid black hats carrying a large pole across the sand. They were going to make a sandwich with it, but dropped dead.

“Oy,” said Hojept to his brother, Moskitt. “This can’t go on. How stupid can they be? There’s the entire ocean behind them and they are dying like flies. We have maize, salad, corn bread, cole slaw and cranberries and they have nothing. It’s not right. Maybe we should help them.”

“I really think that’s an iffy idea,” answered Moskitt.

“Iffy? You think so? We can’t let them starve. That’s that,” said Hojept.

The natives went back to their elders and laid it out on the table, so to speak. They said the whites were dying and would all be gone in a week if they didn’t do something quick. It was decided they would have a feast and invite the whites. “Then,” said the chief, “we will teach them our farming, our vegetables and our ways. They will be able to fend for themselves. And we will give them blankets. Those schmucks are obviously ill-prepared for winter, so if their famine doesn’t get them, the cold will.”

Long story short. The pilgrims and natives had an amazing dinner. The natives kept the whites from starving. When healthy and plump enough, the whites returned the favor by wiping out Hojept, Antoop and the rest of the tribe, except for a half dozen natives whom they took as slaves.

The very next year, Smythe turned to his wife and said, “Look how far we’ve come. We’ve been here only a year and now the entire coastline is ours, we have a thousand acres of crops, and fishing is like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s so fricken easy. And we did it all on our own.” At this point he winked, looked up to Heaven and said solemnly, “Now we can worship our own God in the comfort of our new land. Let’s join hands and close our eyes and give Him our Thanks for this bounty.”

So that’s the story. Now pass the cranberry sauce!

Share This

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.