Thanksgiving Musings.

Yes it's Thanksgiving Eve here in the US of A and all around the country, turkeys are eyeing sharp cutlery with some suspicion and a lot of nervousness.

Actually any live turkeys are probably pretty safe today as we live in an age when kids think turkeys, like their smaller (and tastier) cousins, are born frozen and, by design, have their internal organs neatly packaged in tiny plastic bags. Just how they managed to get stuffed up their asses is another matter and little Johnny or Hank don't need to be told about that.

Have you ever seen a wild turkey running around au naturelle with a little black hat on its head ? Probably not. Not even in Walmart where you see just about everything !

Being British, I'm not going to presume I know what Americans have to be thankful for - well apart from us Brits saving them in WWII but don't get me started on THAT. No, this is a VERY unique (oh how I used to hate reading that expression) holiday and, considering our history, I have to say I think we should hijack the bandwagon and have a British version.

I mean, come on. If 'they' can be thankful with only about 300 years of history, think what we could dredge up to be thankful for with 2,000 + years of history. Actually I'm not sure when man (or woman........ha !) first set foot on British soil but I'm sure it was before Coronation Street started and even before Cliff Richard had his first No.1 so it had to be a long time ago.

Despite evidence of Homo Erectus still being a bit sketchy even now in parts of the Scottish Highlands and most of central Glasgow, I'm pretty sure we had inhabitants 750,000 years ago when Britain didn't even exist as a nation and the actual landmass was still joined to continental Europe. Oh yes, we were much more a part of Europe back then and anyone with a wheel and a desire to travel could've made it from one side to the other in a couple of years ! Well unless they were starting from North Wales and then they'd have had to go at 20mph.

Little 'in' joke there.

So with our history going back countless centuries and with a clean slate to start with, think of the national fun we could have deciding what OUR Thanksgiving Day could celebrate ! I think I should email the editors of such agust UK newspapers as The Sun and The Star and suggest they poll their readership for suggestions.

Sadly I'm sure the appearance of the first Page 3 girl (Stephanie Rahn, 17th Nov 1970) or England winning the World Cup (30th July 1966) would rate highly on the thanksgiving scale and important as those events may be, they don't really compare with a bunch of pilgrims surviving their first brutal winter in New England.

Here's a thought : if they'd landed in South East Florida, anywhere near Miami Beach, there would BE no Thanksgiving Day. I mean with hardly a first brutal winter to survive, they'd have gone down in history as a very fortunate bunch of religious exiles indeed. Jammy bastards in fact. Old Abe would've no doubt found some other event to remember on the 4th Thursday in November but it certainly wouldn't have been for a load of pilgrims slapping on the factor 30 and sunbathing on a Florida beach all winter.

And I don't care how tasty they might be, I'd not appreciate finding a hunk of cooked pelican or a gator tail on my dinner plate tomorrow. Oh hell no.

So there you have it.....my take on Thanksgiving Day. If Wikipedia is to be believed, a day for giving thanks, spending time with family, feasting, football games and parades. We Brits can do all those things so just for once, we should follow in the footsteps of our friends across the pond (no, not the French...the OTHER pond) and create our own Thanksgiving Day. I may fall slightly short of the readership of The Sun or The Star, but please feel free to add your suggestions as to what we should be thankful for........and modesty dictates you leave this blog off the list !

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US friends.....especially those cooking my meal tomorrow !