Happy Thanksgiving!

I couldn't beat this one... had to re-post my friend Heather's Thanksgiving story... for more writing by Heather, click here.

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Oh, Thanksgiving. The day that we Americans celebrate the Pilgrims and the Indians and their friendly co-existence. I remember it like it was yesterday, my elementary school reenactment of that fateful day on Plymouth Rock.

Little Jason Evans played the lead Pilgrim. “Ha!” he said, as the Indian women set about decorating the picnic tables with cornucopia. “You bring turkey and we bring smallpox! Ha! Ha! We are in the process of launching an unprecedented biological war on your people. You will lose 75% of your population because God has given us this land from sea to sea!”

Then Sally Jones, the Narrator, said, “The Indians were only the first step in conquering the new world. Early Americans also marched across the continent and took land from Mexico and Canada, and ultimately moved into the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, claiming islands and finally stealing Hawaii from Queen Liliuokalani so that the state count could be a nice round 50 and the stars would line up right on the flag.”

Out in the audience someone’s dad shouted, “Queen Liliuokalani! Pshaw. More like Queen Lilliputian!” And everyone laughed, because people who are not even 6 inches high, that’s funny stuff.

Jason Evans: Lead Pilgrim then continued shouting at the Indians, “I am still working on my plan to gain the middle part of the continent. My sources tell me that pesky old France is going to grab hold of it.”

The lights went dim over the Thanksgiving feast and the spotlight shone brightly again on Sally Jones. “Fortunately the Americans would never have to fight the pesky French for control of the middle of the country. God saw fit to send slaves to Haiti where a guy named Toussaint (which ironically rhymes with croissant) led a big rebellion. The French were kicked off the island, which meant Napoleon no longer needed the middle of America for sugar cane supplies. So he sold it to Thomas Jefferson dirt cheap.”

And everyone laughed again because, get it, dirt cheap!

The Thanksgiving stage lights came back up. “My plan is called Manifest Destiny and it means Americans can do whatever they want because God wants them to have all the land! Ha! Ha!”

Then the audience clapped really big and my class took a good long bow.

It was a very accurate play.