Thanking God for Genocide

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house. My mother is one fine cook and baker. I can almost smell the scent of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, buttered biscuits, cherry pie, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. No yucky sweet potatoes though because being 100% Irish we only eat real potatoes.

The Mac (my daughter) is off work for Thanksgiving and Adam (my son) will be home from college. Thanksgiving a sit down dinner with three generations of the family I hope will leave my children with happy holiday memories.

Holidays in the good ole USA always have some bizarre background to them. The Thanksgiving holiday is no exception as it's history is about as weird as it gets.

We will smell a kitchen full of the scents of a delectable feast but that is not the whiff of what Thanksgiving represents. The original smells would have been the putrid scent of barbecued Indian flesh.

Here is a historic description behind the massacre of Indians, which is the real reason the Pilgrims, gave thanks: This by William Bradford, an early settler, on Captain John Mason’s attack on a Pequot village.

"Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword, some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived that they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy."

While we have genocide against turkeys for Thanksgiving our fore fathers had a genocide against Native Americans.

Thanksgiving history:facts

Here is a Thanksgiving/Christmas poem I wrote:

Holiday Deja Vu By the elecpencil

It starts before Thanksgiving
Those articles in the newspaper
on what to cook with leftover turkey.
Turkey ala-king, potpies, burritos...
why not turkey Jell-O or turkey smoothies?
Why don’t they just say buy a
God damn smaller turkey!

Then I wouldn’t have to see
all those redundant articles.
Next comes Christmas.
Ready for Christmas’s religious service,
I sit down to read the daily paper
and of course, there’s an article
on how Christmas is too commercial.

It’s say, Christmas has become
the largest annual economic stimulus
for many countries.
The story is squeezed in between
a Christmas Sales ad and
an article on the hottest toys to buy.

I contemplate the question
of Christmas commercialization...
sitting at my Thomasville dining room table
drinking my Carnation instant hot chocolate
complete with Kraft marshmallows
from my Correll Peach Garland pattern mug.

I spill some on my Geoffrey Benne necktie.
I toss it in my Kenmore washer and
add some Tide, extra strength
I turn on my Toshiba stereo TV and
ease into my Lazy Boy Recliner.
I set it to full tilt and view the 27” screen between
my black Dexter wing tips
that are so old they
were made in the USA.

I eat a Fiesta bowl of
Nabisco shredded wheat
with slices of Dole bananas in it.
My Timex watch says its time to go.
I get my tie out of the Maytag dryer
and put on my Botany 500 jacket.

I get in my Dodge mini-van
and leave my Ryan built home.
I brush off the idea of Christmas
being too commercial
as I enter church to celebrate
the real meaning of Christmas...
For the rest of you...
Merry McChristmas and
a happy Wal-Mart New Year.

Thanksgiving Prayer by William S. Burroughs: Burroughs

Stuff it Good: Devo parody

Happy Thanksgiving pass the smoldering Butterball Indian.