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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Thankgiving, loosely based on actual events

The feast didn't come to my house, thanks to my stomach flu. So forgive me for still opining about Thanksgiving and that pumpkin pie I wait all year to consume. Not that I've given up. Eventually, that pumpkin pie will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

But I digress.

The history of the holiday has always intrigued me. Something had to be missing. I could nearly feel it. Maybe I learned the full story in grade school and grew up to forget it, my subconscious pinging every once in a while when some liberal teacher, politician, talking head told me we were celebrating how Native-Americans saved the day.

That just didn't seem right.

Not that I'm degrading their contribution. Heck, I AM Native-American. Cherokee, in fact. My ancestors, on both sides, were sitting at that table on that fateful first feast. But to end there, it felt incomplete.

I've been writing stories my entire adult life. I've been reading them in droves, too. When it ends wrong, when it leaves a vacancy, I feel an ache in my bones. Something in that story went awry. I know like I know my writer's arthritis.

That's how I've always felt about Thanksgiving, as if a chunk - one I had known as a child - had been omitted.

Now, at last, is - as Paul Harvey would say - the rest of the story. This is the real Thanksgiving story, one confirmed by historic facts I already knew from David Barton's Wallbuilders. Heat up your leftovers and enjoy.