About Thanksgiving

Thanks for all your answers.

This is not the first Thanksgiving Red Flower and I have spent together, but it is the first time I have been terrified that she was going to make me watch a football game. I don't think I've watched a whole football game in my life. I don't even know the rules. Thanks guys, for getting me off the hook!

Maybe it would be more interesting if they armed both teams with khukuris. Big GRs for the linebackers, a kobra for the quarterback...

I'm going to put a turkey in the smoker this evening. In the morning we'll stuff it and finish baking it. The stuffing will be based on basmati and wild rice, with a whole onion and orange, some of our homegrown apples chopped, mixed nuts, our homegrown sage, and Red Flower insists that we add some fried tofu. That should be interesting and I think it will be good. I'll show her how to make cranberry sauce starting from cranberries too. Maybe this evening.

The house is going to be pretty full tomorrow with family and friends.
 
In a strange way, I'm actually proud right now...to be an American...in a country where a man is free not to know the rules to the number one public sports event...

Now that, my friends, is freedom.

If only I were as free of the "Oscar Meyer Wiener Song".



munk
 
This is not the first Thanksgiving Red Flower and I have spent together, but it is the first time I have been terrified that she was going to make me watch a football game. I don't think I've watched a whole football game in my life. I don't even know the rules. Thanks guys, for getting me off the hook!
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I'm right there with you Howard. If I didn't have a martial arts background and collect knives they might revoke my man parts;)

In a strange way, I'm actually proud right now...to be an American...in a country where a man is free not to know the rules to the number one public sports event...
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:D Funny, but I agree. You might lose a hand for that in some places. (could be worse if it was hockey--"face off")
 
I hate football.
The whole concept I find disgusting. Free college for guys who wouldnt go to school if they didnt have to.
What a pointless game.
ITs not even nice to the players. Have one accident and ruin one knee joint and thats it. youre dead. Noone will remember your name.

why not spend your time and effort improving yourself?
 
Sports are fun. Team sports are less fun. Professional sports are much less fun -- and college sports are professional. :rolleyes:

But my daughter regularly wins the football pool on her job. Ya can't argue with that kind of love of the game!

Ahhh, Thanksgiving! One of the few truly happy holidays, before the stress of the department store holidays, after the hectic summer months, all the crops are in and nothing to do but sleep late until Spring!

Well, it has a certain ring to it. :D
 
I envy someone who wins the Football pool at work.
Pretty girls smiling at you, getting your order in at a restaraunt just before the line gets impossibly long; lucky, happy stuff. Stuff that makes you feel as if a little extra light was shined upon your back from above.



munk
 
I gotta jump in defense of football (no pun intended. I promise). I'm not a "football guy". I don't have a team that I watch religiously. I'm a Chicago Bears fan because my father is. I grew up loving Chicago. I also like watching the Colts. Their offense harkens back to a long gone day of crackerjack "total" offense before the days of a superstar running back piggybacking the whole team. However, that's not my point.
Football is great character builder for those schools that suck at it. I played every year from the 7th grade all the way through 12th. Our best season was 5-5. Hell, I weighed every bit of 165lb pounds at my heaviest and was a first string defensive tackle:eek: Football schools, the ones where every former player's boy takes the job his daddy did 20 years before are excessive. You burn out on the game. It's not about going to college, or challanging yourself, and it sure isn't about fun. Now, at a school where the team sucks. Those guys out on the field are there for a reason. Some love the game. I was not one of those. Some are psychotic discipline freaks that love physical challanges. That was who I was. Actually, I think I was the only guy on the team that loved that part of it. To leave the emotion behind, to embrace the lactic acid, just you and muscle memory and using animal forces to kick the other guy's @$$ even though he outweighs you by 90lbs+.
Football is a character builder under the right circumstances. It does better a boy and turn him into a "man" (whatever that means). You learn hard work, mental and physical discipline, you earn your spot on a team. It's not for everyone, and I'm sure no expert. I know that if I had gone to a highschool of 2000 instead of one of 900 that I would have sat the bench if I had played. Also, the showboats would have driven me to quit. I can't stand lazy showboats that get away with everything because the team needs them to rush for 150 yards every Friday.
That kind of thing didn't fly with old Coach Moose. With a shaved head, a beard with a lightning bolt of gray in it, and wild look in his eyes that is very similar to my avatar. He was half crazed and tough as hell on us. He wasn't very good as a football coach, but by God he toughened you up. You know it's bad when you flip on 20/20 to see a expo on "how bad the millitary treats recruits at boot camp" and you say to yourself "Yep, done that..done that...wish we would have done that instead..."

Jake
Go Mt. Vernon Wildcats
 
Howard Wallace said:
Thanks for all your answers.

Maybe it would be more interesting if they armed both teams with khukuris. Big GRs for the linebackers, a kobra for the quarterback...
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there used to be a sport like that, two indian tribes would have goal posts set up a mile or so apart, both tribes would start in the middle & try to get the ball thru the opposing goal. no other rules, no counting of players, weapons allowed (& encouraged) fatalities frowned on but not unknown, broken bones common.

unfortuneatly the sheeple got ahold of it, took away the weapons, made the field smaller & restricted the no. who could play so it could be televised, made the participants wear armour & only let them use a little stick with a dinky net on the end to move the ball. still get a lot of casualties tho.

called lacrosse.

anyway, watch a good movie together, the together is the operative word. happy thanksgiving to all.

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come to think of it, most ball games started when someone would donate a spare head which was then kicked, hammered, thrown or slammed back & forth between two opposing armies. (see battle scene to 'gladiator' where the german throws in the first head to start the 'game' rolling) polo was the cavalry version, buskashi (the version using a goat) still played in the khyber.

again, the sheeple all got together & toned it all down to avoid all the fun casualties & we now fall asleep watching football, soccer, lacrosse, polo, rugby, etc. with nary a thought of the poor animal who has forfeited their skin to cover the ball which should have been someone's noggin.
 
DannyinJapan said:
We try to eat what the Pilgrims ate on the first Thanksgiving in 1620.
To the Pilgrims, a lot of these foods were unknown before their arrival in America.
They ate corn, venison, fish, turkey, duck, barley, peas, goats' milk, walnuts, maple syrup, eggs, etc..
The Pilgrims were damned lucky to survive and they knew it. They were also deeply religious people, early protestant Christians whose beliefs deeply affected the nature of American society and still do today.
Thanksgiving may be a national holiday, but it is a Christian holiday of thanksgiving to God.

They celebrated for three days with feasting and other entertainments with the Wampanoag tribe who had helped them survive in the new world.
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The Wampanoag's were not Christians, (not to mention the same Christians raided them shortly after Thanksgiving). So, it's not a Christian holiday for all of us that celebrate on Thanksgiving. It is as much of an Indian festivity for a minority of us.
 
I never meant to imply that the Native Americans who attended were Christians.
The native Americans were invited to the first Thanksgiving, it wasnt their holiday...
I just wanted Red Flower to understand the roots of the modern tradition of Thanksgiving.
If you ask a Japanese person to whom are they saying thanks on their version of Thanksgiving day, they'll say "everybody else."
They dont say "God"
So, God is not necessarily understood and assumed to be a part of traditions and rituals, espcially here in mostly atheistic Japan.
It is important to understand who the Pilgrims were and why they left their homes and how much of their beliefs became a part of American social mores.
Of course, like Halloween, many people do have their own non faith-based versions of the holiday. It's a free country after all. (Thanks to the Pilgrims)
 
The story of history is the same story of greed, ignorance, hunger and despair repeated over and over. There is nothing new with either the 'White Man" or the "Red Man."

We celebrate thanks on this day. Perhaps long ago, with the colonists, there was a moment they reached out in friendship to the ndn, as the ndn reached out to them. That this subsequently fell apart, like much falls with men, does not detract from the meaning of thanks we would give this day.

There is no people nor single man nor woman who is above blame in this ground of living. We are trying to become better. I give thanks today we can try. Be it increments, by misteps, or half steps, or even short runs foreward; we keep trying to do better.


munk
 
Kazeryu said:
Well, since I'm so far away from the rest of you guys, I guess I can say this in relative safety:

I get bored by just about any televised sport. No, really. Any.

:p
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I DO like the cheerleaders. First panties I ever saw as a kid!
 
For some, it was a free country before the Pilgrims, but not after. To think we taught them how to survive. ANYWAY...

Did anyone see the half-time show of the Falcons vs. Lion's yesterday?
That Mariah Carey...she's REALLY gifted. She doesn't sing bad either.
 
For some, it was a free country before the Pilgrims, but not after. To think we taught them how to survive. ANYWAY...>>>>>>>>>> Lion's Roar

Certainly true, and the same story repeated globally as Hunter gatherers were upsurped by higher technology. Whether or not something precious was left behind by the 'advance' of McDonald's is something for the individual to consider. Use of 'we' and 'them' would indicate this was true for you, Lion's Roar. I like to think we're all the same 'us'. My bumper sticker:

"We all live on the Reservation;
some of us just got here first."

take care,

munk
 
Munk, you have a really good insight, as always. And the way I see it, noone that is alive today was alive then, so there is noone to blame walking the planet today. Here and now is where we are at and we have to move forward. I have a sensitivity about certain things passed on through my family, possibly over-sensitive at times. I do hope that everyone had as wonderful Thanksgiving. I can't say that I ever had a better one. There is nothing like seeing children looking wide-eyed at a big table of food and a 25 lb. turkey!
 
It still disgusts me 'we' broke every treaty....
Once you dehumanize a group of people, or a person, there are very few things you won't do, if any. That's why there are Muslim fanatics blowing up civilians, and why Hitler thought little of gassing Jews.

Dehumanize and act badly.

I'm not sure about this, and maybe someone could tell me, but I believe it was a liberal, 'do good' approach that wanted Native Americans to leave their religions and language behind- to better assimulate in the mainstream.

Incalculatable damage was done through this best intention of having all people the same. IT would be like asking Italians to stop using the tomato and the crucifix, The Jew the Torah, the Hindu the Veda.

We just can't stop hurting each other. As we all know, not all Native Americans were the 'same'. Many peoples I consider more sophisticated than others. The Eastern Confederacy, for example, that Thomas Jeffereson borrowed from in his famous writings, were much more desireable by todays standards than other tribes cultures.

People are people. I'm fond of saying if the Sioux had had the M1 Garand in 1865 there would not be another tribe West of the Miss. River to this day.

People are people, we have much more in common that we do apart, and all of us came from Hunter Gatherers.

Lion's Roar, I tried to be careful how I posted on this. I didn't want to offend you or anyone, and I wanted us to come together, to give thanks we are all of us in the thing called Life together.

munk
 
How was everyone's Thanksgiving? Did you all have fun and enjoy it??

Steely_Gunz said:
My father's side of the family does things A LOT different. The men sit on the couch and watch football. The women serve up the food and bring it to the men. The men usually eat in the living room watching football while the women stay in the kitchen.
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This was exactly what I learned from the English textbook.

Steely_Gunz said:
My wife and I don't go to my grandparents house for the holidays for this reason. We don't believe that women were put on this earth to serve their husbands.
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Well, I like to serve my husband and my family, also I enjoy being served.

This year Howard and I did some different dishes for the Thanksgiving.

ferguson said:
My wife doesn't enjoy cooking that much so I will be doing most of it. I will cook a turkey, a smoked ham, mashed potatos, corn bread stuffing, cranberries, fresh yeast rolls, pumpkin and mincemeat pies. My mother is bringing green beans, my daughter is bringing macaroni and cheese, and my mother-in-law is bringing bananna pudding.

When we eat, my father will say the grace (prayer) since he is the patriarch of the family. He usually has a list of things to say that he is thankful for. Sometimes my mother asks everyone to say what they are the most thankful for.
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I like cooking. But I didn't show this interest to my parents and my sisters in Beijing. They all can't believe that I can cook good food for Howard. They feel PITY about Howard. :) Yesterday Howard was in charge of cooking turkey, since the turkey was too big for me to handle. He smoked the turkey overnight and put in the oven with low heat for several hours. I made mashed potato. We made cranberry sauce and stuffing together. We put some fried tofu as part of staffing, it really turned out great. The fried tofu absorbed a lot of favor from the turkey, rice and other components of the stuffing. I made a cold spicy dish with seaweed. I couldn't believe that everyone loved it. My mother-in-law even suggested we should have that dish as a traditional Thanksgiving dish.

Howard Wallace said:
Thanks for all your answers.

This is not the first Thanksgiving Red Flower and I have spent together, but it is the first time I have been terrified that she was going to make me watch a football game. I don't think I've watched a whole football game in my life. I don't even know the rules. Thanks guys, for getting me off the hook!
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That was not true. I should defense for myself. I am not a fan of football either, although I like the uniform they are wearing. After the big meal, we did play Mah Jiong, which is a common Chinese game.

Again, thanks for all your replies. I did learn a lot as always. I am looking forward to next Thanksgiving now.
 
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