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At its heart, our Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, and in Colorado at least, it makes no sense to celebrate it in late November, long after the crops are in. We would enjoy better feasts if we moved it to the Canadian date, the second Monday in October.
It's not as though there's anything carved in stone
about the current date. In North America, governors and
presidents were apt to proclaim a day of
thanksgiving
just about any time of the year, and the
current national holiday goes back only to Oct. 3, 1863,
when President Abraham Lincoln declared that the last
Thursday in November would be a day of Thanksgiving and
Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the
Heavens.
Lincoln's reasons for gratitude covered just about
everything -- not just a harvest from the fields, but for
iron and coal from the mines: In the midst of a civil
war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has
sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke
their aggression, peace has been preserved with all
nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been
respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere
except in the theatre of military conflict; while that
theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies
and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and
of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the
national defense, have not arrested the plough, the
shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of
our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as
of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly
than heretofore.
As you may have noticed, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving
on the last Thursday of November this year. That's because
in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt put it on the
penultimate (it means next to last,
not even
cooler than the ultimate
) Thursday of November.
That way, there would be a longer Christmas shopping
season, which traditionally started after Thanksgiving
then, although these days it often starts right after
back to school.
A longer gift-shopping season
presumably meant more retail sales; who says Democrats
don't care about business?
Some states, however, kept to the traditional last
Thursday instead of the new-fangled federal
Franksgiving,
and in 1941, Congress compromised and
set Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday -- the ultimate
Thursday on most years, but the penultimate in some years,
like this one.
There are, of course, things to be thankful for this
year. But when some items come to mind, so also do things
that one might be unthankful
for.
For instance, I'm thankful for phone answering machines, since they mean that I don't have to respond every time the device rings. On the other hand, I'm unthankful for other people's answering machines, voice mail and the like, because I can't immediately reach them when I call, and if I didn't want to reach them, I wouldn't be calling.
Similarly, I am grateful for email. I can stay in touch with lots of people; it's easy to store and search, unlike paper mail. But I am ungrateful for the 50 to 100 messages I get every day touting stock hustles, OEM software and V!@gr@.
Among the greatest aspects of living in this country, especially out in the boondocks, is public land. Just a few minutes from my door are thousands of acres, often with interesting old roads and trails, that I can explore with the dog on our daily strolls. On many days we meet other dog-walkers, adding to the pleasure. I am thankful for this.
However, I am unthankful for all the ATVs that roar around. Barry Goldwater once referred to these as Japan's revenge on America for winning World War II. Despite what I am told about how these devices allow the old and disabled to enjoy the great outdoors, all the drivers I've seen are younger and healthier than I am.
What makes me even more ungrateful is that people with
$2,500 machines call me an elitist
for going
outdoors with my $20 boots and free dog. Or perhaps I
should be grateful to live in a country where it's so easy
to join the elite.
In other places, you might have
to attend prestigious universities and make tons of money,
but in America, you can just go for a walk.
And one of the things I'm most grateful for on Thanksgiving is that there's usually an alternative to eating turkey. Whoever decided that fowl was edible was a lot hungrier than I ever want to be.
In other words, I'm grateful that I've never suffered from hunger to that extent, and that's a good reason to celebrate Thanksgiving.
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