Don't You Pardon that Bird!

You're free, Squawky!

This year, as in many others, the President of the United States will on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving  good-naturedly but officially pardon a turkey. 

Mr. President, don't you pardon that bird!

According to recently classified documents obtained by Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute, pardoning a turkey serves only to release back into the general populace a terrorist bent on the overthrow of the United States and the destruction of everything we hold dear, including Betty White!   

                                                                 Who?  Me? 

Turkey Nation,  as we have now learned,  has sought to destroy the United States from a time before there even was a United States.

How did it all begin?   

When the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, indigenous American turkeys were terrified by the pale-skinned,  non-feathered, non-turkey necked* New Kids on the Rock.  Turkey Nation feared that before long they'd be forced to wear shoes with annoyingly cute little buckles and read boring poetry by Longfellow. 

Their leader, known as Squawky, devised a cunning scheme in which he feigned friendship with the settlers and actually encouraged them to pound down the turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Once saturated with typtophan,  the dozing Pilgrims would be no match for Turkey Nation's plans for murder most fowl!

Two days after Thanksgiving 1621, Squawky led a raid known to history as Gobblers' Gambit in which 16 soporific settlers were killed, another eight wounded, and 14 more smeared with mashed potatoes and giblet gravy. Additional raids followed, some of which involved  frontal assault with pumpkin pie, which has no other purpose aside from warfare.

Squawky feigns friendliness toward the Pilgrims at the First Thanksgiving, 1621

During the Revolutionary War, Turkey Nation continued its treachery by remaining loyal to the British Crown. Squawky (not the original Squawky) convinced General  Benedict Arnold to slip secret information concerning "basting techniques" to British spymaster Major John Andre, thereby causing the name "Squawky" to become forever synonymous with the word "traitor!" 

(Occasionally the name "Benedict Arnold" is used for similar purposes as well.)

And what of today? 

Your Thanksgiving Dinner is  enabled each year through the efforts of millions of kamikaze turkeys willing to give their lives and gizzards for the cause. Aided by their evil partner in crime, the National Football League, Turkey Nation seeks to get you so sleepy Thursday afternoon that it can seize power before you can say "fuckin' turkey  leftovers again?"

Fortunately the CIA has been able to counter their plans by covertly orchestrating disturbances to keep you awake.  Think your loud bigoted uncle at dinner, your vomiting St. Bernard, and your daughter weepily telling you she's pregnant by General Petraeus are all coincidences?   It's the U.S. government keeping you safe!

At least until now.

And so, Mr. President, don't you pardon that bird!  

And to all of you:  this Thanksgiving,  please be careful when you hit that living room, undo your bulging fat belly pants, and shut your eyes.  

You might just wake up marching to the beat of a different drumstick.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING,  EVERYONE!

YOU TOO,  SQUAWKY!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Squawky (not the original Squawky) greets close buds
 in Berlin, 1937

*except for one Captain Newton Gingrich

Lost in the Shuffle

If there's any holiday that always gets lost in the shuffle,  it's the one coming up next week.  You know the one.

It's the holiday that's anymore just a pit stop between Halloween and the fun holiday where you get presents.  The name'll come to me.   

To most of us, its significance can best be described as: 

Two days off and too much Turkey!

Wait!  Is it called Twosday? Or Toosday?

Nah, can't be.   Cause it's  marked by a family and friends-attended meal eaten on a Thursday that has most of us overdosed on typtophan until late the next Sunday.   

As I recall, it has an interesting back story:  

The Pilgrims were a group of early settlers in America who came to our shores seeking freedom of worship because in England there was a building fund. Once they'd safely arrived, however, they unexpectedly found themselves regularly serving as hot lunch for the flora and fauna indigenous to the New World, and learning to survive in a Caesar Salad was not a coping skill they had mastered. 

In a pickle, and literally serving as one, the Pilgrims developed the smarts to befriend the neighboring Indians, who taught them how to hunt, fish, plant and harvest crops,  and look bad ass while doing it.    And in the spirit of peace and brotherhood,  the Pilgrims thereupon celebrated a feast with their new Native American friends, marred only by Priscilla Mullens' insistence on bringing  jello mold. 

This all made for a pretty cool moment in time, especially since subsequent generations of settlers implemented a minor adjustment in policy regarding the Indians,  shifting slightly away from celebrating joyous feasts with them and somewhat more towards annihilating them, robbing them of their lands, and making movies and TV shows in which the Indian roles were played by white guys like Victor Mature,  Ed Ames,  and Joey Bishop.

Today, nearly 500 years later, anticipation of this meaningful holiday runs high every year, as we highly anticipate it being over before we've even gotten our children's Halloween costumes back into the box.  

Of course, there are a handful of television specials that do promote the approaching special Thursday occasion.  Starting with A Charlie Brown Special About this Holiday, you can also view A Charlie Brown Special About this Holiday, and finally, for good measure, there's  A Charlie Brown Special About this Holiday.

Meanwhile there's hardly a celebrity in Hollywood short of Patton Oswalt who doesn't helm a colorful special devoted to the holiday yet two months away or a product other than Cialis for Daily Use not trading on its reindeer, elves, or snow-covered imagery to penetrate (sorry!) the seasonal marketplace.  

Oh, look what's on!  Patton Oswalt's Holly Jolly Special from the Holy Land sponsored by Dick-So-Hard Liquid and Pills!

Finally comes the Thursday of the holiday itself,  and yes indeed, there are major parades from coast to coast.  But who's the guest of honor at each and every one of them?  None other than that chubby little man in the red jump suit named Santa Claus.  Isn't he also connected in some way with that other holiday still about a  month away?  

Wouldn't somebody like Squanto, Samoset, or one of the other Native Americans who helped the Pilgrims avoid becoming guacamole dip for Smokey the Bear make a better guest of honor?   I guess maybe there aren't enough white guys willing to work the holiday to play them.

For all its sometimes annoying aspects of Herculean food prep, cranky family members intent on talking politics with a mouthful of stuffing,  and post-gorging induced terminal stupors, this holiday ---  whatever it's called ---  used to mean something all its own. Something that, unlike as with so many other holidays, reached across and transcended ethnic and religious boundaries.

Now we define the holiday in terms of its surroundings.  It's two days off and too much food surrounded by too much hype!

Maybe it is called Toosday after all.

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