The First Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving was in 1621. That’s a mere 385 years ago. There is only one surviving member from that wonderful day, but she lost her memory about 300 years ago, so we have only a couple of written accounts of what happened on that day.

To start our story, let me ask a question:

“If April showers bring mayflowers, what do mayflowers bring?”

“Pilgrims.”

The Pilgrims arrived in December 1620. If they had arrived a month earlier, the first Thanksgiving would’ve been in 1620, but they missed it, and had to wait almost a year.

As you already know, the Pilgrims came on a cruise ship called the Mayflower. It was the first cruise ship that the Carnival Lines sent to the New World.

The Mayflower landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Plymouth was named after a car that is no longer manufactured.

The Pilgrims were Puritans. That means that they were pure in word, thought, and deed, much of the time.

Some of them knew how to fish, and since New England is famous for its seafood, they really had plenty to eat, and for that they were thankful.

The Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to farm, as they owned a big farm called Pepperidge Farms. Squanto, who was a distant cousin to Tonto, taught them how to plant Indian corn.

There were about 50 Pilgrims and 90 Indians at the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims didn’t have a place big enough to seat 140 people, so they set up many card tables outside (the Pilgrims only had card tables for eating, for they didn’t play cards, after all, they were Puritans).

It was a cloudy day, but, fortunately, the weatherman said that it wouldn’t rain that day.

Of course, the people in New York were thankful for a cloudy day, too. It’s totally miserable to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in the rain. They couldn’t sit home and watch it on TV because there was no TV back then.

In the morning, after the men went out and shot five deer, two dozen turkeys, and caught 150 codfish and 98 bass, they brought them to the women who slaved away in the kitchen to prepare the big feast. This is a tradition that survives to this day.
When they sat finally down to eat, the Pilgrims sat on one side of the table, and the Native Americans sat on the other side.

Miles Standish said to Chief Massasoyt, “What, you don’t trust the white man?”

Chief Massasoyt just smiled.

After their traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, all the men gathered together to watch “The Game.”

The women threw the dishes into the ocean, for they had a lot of sweaters to knit. Winter was coming on.

Playing on that first Thanksgiving were the New England Pilgrims versus the Pittsburg Steelers. The Steelers used to be called the Pittsburg Scalpers, but Native Americans, and rightly so, objected to that name.

Pittsburgh won, 90 to nothing. The Pilgrims really weren’t into football. For one thing, the Bible they always carried got in the way when they tried to catch the ball. They were also afraid to get too close in a huddle because they were afraid people would think that they were gay, so they couldn’t hear how the quarterback said the play would go.

(Little would they know that Massachusetts would be the first state to adopt gay marriage.)

Later that night, they sat around the fire while the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to make popcorn. One man, named Redenbacher, who was a stowaway on the Mayflower, took careful notes.

And that, my friends, is the true story of the first Thanksgiving.