Wild Turkey

The thanksgiving season is upon us.

And now I can shift from blogging about fear to writing about gratitude and sharing…way more pleasant!

The first Thanksgiving was an interesting meal. After surviving a nasty winter, a bunch of unrelated and ethnically/culturally different people sat down together to celebrate. (See below for what they ate.)

Squanto is my personal hero. He supposedly learned English when he was enslaved. But he didn’t hold a grudge. Instead, he went on to teach the colonists how to catch eel and grow corn and he served an an interpreter. Perhaps that was his own form of revenge against the British Crown. Regardless of his motivations, he was a helpful dude and a real team player.

Speaking of teams, four members of the Plymouth crew apparently also was sent out by William Bradford on “fowling mission” to capture some big birds for the table. (They couldn’t just get them from Amazon or FreshDirect? What’s with that?)

As we enter the season of giving, let’s take a page from the Pilgrims and the Native Americans.

• Don’t be afraid to eat with strangers
• Look to your team for their strengths — and send them out to gather fowl (and then post or Tweet about it, to share your successes, of course)
• Even if you’ve been through some bad stuff, try to keep a good attitude. Teaching someone to catch an eel (or rewarding them for fowling) can pay off in the long run.

For more “talking turkey,” subscribe to this blog, share your own gratitudes and observations in the Comments section, and check back every Sunday for updates!

And here’s a random buffet of Thanksgiving trivia…

	The first Thanksgiving menu.
	My man Squanto and his complicated relationships.
	The dark side of Thanksgiving: Blackout Wednesday. (Keep away from THAT kind of Wild Turkey!)
	Help someone catch an eel! Here’s how to find holiday volunteer opportunities.