This is a season of symbolism. Some of us associate Thanksgiving with a Norman Rockwell painting of a family sitting down to a dinner of turkey and stuffing, varied trimming, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, and we like to think we are giving thanks for our blessings by consuming it. Others of us may choose to share our bounty by providing food and financial support to persons at home and abroad who are less fortunate than ourselves. Many of us will see in our mind’s eye the native Americans at Plymouth sharing their meager foodstuffs with hungry Pilgrim colonists.
But the concept of thanksgiving is far older than an early American Judeo-Christian way of thanking God for their provenance. For countless centuries festivals throughout the world have celebrated the gathering of earth’s bounty in preparation for winter. The old hymn “Harvest Home� expresses the spirit: “God our maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied� and “Crops are safely gathered in ere the winter storms begin.� The same concept applies in the animal world; squirrels and chipmunks store acorns, sometimes in your garage or attic.
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As early as 1576 Martin Frobisher held a celebration of thanksgiving on Baffin Island in what is now the Canadian Arctic, while he was attempting unsuccessfully to discover an ice-free passage to the Orient. (There is probably much better cause for celebration today because of global warming). In 1789, the new president of the United States, George Washington, proclaimed Nov. 26 as a day of thanksgiving. But it was not until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln established a formal Day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November as an occasion for prayer to heal the wounds of the nation during the Civil War.
Lincoln’s decision came about largely through the influence of Sarah Josepha Hale, a native of Newport, N.H., who, as editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, had campaigned for more than 30 years to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. (Incidentally, she also was the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb�). In a rather tawdry effort to boost Christmas sales during the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation moving Thanksgiving forward a week, but Congress soon intervened to fix the date firmly as the last Thursday in November.
We seem to owe to Benjamin Franklin the fact that a rather ungainly native bird, the turkey, became the piece de resistance of a proper Thanksgiving dinner. Franklin thought that the turkey should be recognized as the national bird. Raising domesticated turkeys has of course become a huge national industry. The turkey surely had more edible meat than the eagle, which was chosen by Congress as the national bird. Largely exterminated by over-hunting, wild turkeys were reintroduced in the Tri-State area about 30 years ago. Somehow I couldn’t see us eating eagles even if we could catch them.
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So much for the history of the holiday we celebrate this week. In present-day terms most Americans will be thankful for the approaching change of administration. Barack Obama cannot and will not be all things to all people, but his advent will bring a new challenge for America to outgrow its prejudices and be true to its ideals in its policies at home as well as abroad.
From my standpoint Obama has shown admirable balance in his reported cabinet choices. With her experience, Hillary Clinton could be an expert secretary of state; maybe Bill could be permanent representative to the United Nations. Bill Richardson, my own preference for state because of his broad experience, could be an effective secretary of commerce. I’m especially enthusiastic over the possibility of Tom Daschle as secretary of health. Eric Holder, a lawyer known inside Washington, should be effective as the first black attorney general.
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In particular I shall be grateful on this Thanksgiving for the approaching end to a political era in which president, and Congress as well, succumbed to an end-justifies-the-means philosophy of government in which lying and deceit have been regarded as legitimate tools and the Constitution has been reinterpreted to suit the ideology of the neo-cons, with civil liberties often trampled in the process. I am thankful for deliverance from the likelihood that the Supreme Court and lesser judiciary would have been shaped to reflect the Bush and religious right-wing views, denying women the right to choose whether to bear an unwanted child and the benefits of stem cell research.
Yes, despite the current economic tribulations we do have a lot to be thankful for at this Thanksgiving time. Perhaps we shall relearn compassion for others. A people who have regarded themselves and their country itself as automatically the biggest and best in everything needs to pay heed to Robert Burns’ exhortation, “Oh wad some pow’r the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us.�
Which is to say that we need to be aware of our own fallibility. Nothing would become us more on this Thanksgiving Day than a large helping of humility.
