Gobble
From my New England ancestors to you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving. Or, if you happen to live outside the US, Happy Thursday.Here in New England we are now surrounded by a healthy population of wild turkeys, which Benjamin Franklin wanted to elevate to the position of national bird but which instead became a popular whiskey. They almost died out in the mid-20th century, but after a few pairs were re-introduced into the Berkshire Mountains in the 1970s, they proliferated, owing to the fact that they no longer have any natural enemies -- not even cars, to judge by the penchant of our local strutters to stop traffic.
My British pal Clive Davis has an interesting sidelight on Thanksgiving on his blog, taken from a website called Letters of Note, about the angry correspondence FDR received in 1939 when he changed the holiday from the last Thursday in November to the next-to-last, so that there would be more time for economic stimulus -- er, Christmas shopping. As Clive remarks, what would Glenn Beck say if Obama tried that?
November 26, 2009 2:50 PM
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