Nov 23, 2013

Happy Friday

Gratitude is the least of the virtues, but ingratitude is the worst of vices.

No ingratitude next week as we get to celebrate a holiday of gratitude followed by another . . . Happy Friday!

Black Friday

* * * OOH, Black Friday is fast approaching. You can beat the rush by clicking on this AMAZON link to my books and shop from home and pick up some sweet smiles for family and friends.

Thanksgiving Terms

There was not always a choice of dark meat or white meat after carving the turkey. These terms have nothing to do with the color of the meat as they were euphemisms for the leg and breast of turkey and other fowl. In the Victorian times, the words “leg” and “breast” were considered fowl, so they awkwardly decided to call the leg “white meat” and the breast “black meat.”

Did you know Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the US. or that Abraham Lincoln issued a 'Thanksgiving Proclamation' on third October 1863 and officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for Thanksgiving? He was persuaded by Sarah Josepha Hale, an American magazine editor to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. She is also the author of the popular nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

Wordology, Turkey

In the 16th century, when North American turkeys were first introduced to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe, called a guinea fowl. This guinea fowl was imported from Madagascar via the Ottoman Empire. The merchant importers were known as “turkey merchants”. The guinea fowl themselves eventually were popularly referred to as “turkey fowl”, similar to how other product imported through the Ottoman Empire acquired their names, such as “turkey corn”, “turkey wheat”, etc.

The North American turkey was first introduced to Spain in the very early 16th century and later introduced to all of Europe. The North American turkey was thought by many to be a species of the type of guinea fowl that was imported from the Ottoman Empire and also were called a “turkey fowl” in English and later shortened to just turkey.

Turkey Pickings

A group of turkeys is technically called a “rafter”, though they are often incorrectly referred to as a “gobble” or a “flock”.

Due to the reputation of turkeys being thought of as stupid, the term turkey began being used as a slang, derogatory term meaning dumb or idiot in the early 20th century. Of course, domestic turkeys are stupid, but wild turkeys are not.

The phrase “Turkey Shoot” comes from the mid-20th century practice of tying turkeys behind logs, with only their heads exposed, and then holding a marksmanship competition, trying to shoot the turkey’s head off.

Due to the white meat being the most popular part of a turkey, turkeys have been bred to have huge breasts. Because of this, modern domesticated turkeys are no longer typically able to mate, due to the breasts getting in the way of a male mounting the female. Most hatcheries use artificial insemination to fertilize the eggs of the domestic turkey.

Pilgrims and Thanksgiving

Pilgrims did not celebrate the first Thanksgiving in America. In fact, the particular Pilgrim event that is often cited as the first Thanksgiving was not even the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving. They had several before at various times and none were celebrated annually. The days were merely a particular time when people had something significant to thank God for, so would set aside a day to do so.

Around the time the Pilgrims came to America in 1620, it was common in England and many parts of Europe to frequently set aside days for giving thanks to God. In the New World, where life was harsh in the beginning, there were numerous opportunities to hold such days of thanks, such as any time a particularly good crop would come in, when drought would end, when a particularly harsh winter was survived, when a group repelled an attack by Native Americans, when a supply ship arrived safely from Europe, etc. Seems like they had many reasons to party.

These celebrations remained fairly common up until the time when Thanksgiving became a national holiday. Most of these celebrations bore little resemblance to what we think of as Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims celebrations bore little resemblance to what is depicted now.

No one knows for sure who actually celebrated the first actual Thanksgiving in America. The most popular examples often referenced as the actual “firsts” include:

  • The day of thanksgiving celebrated in September 1565 by a group of Spaniards lead by Spanish explorer Pedro MenĂ©ndez de AvilĂ©, in Saint Augustine, Florida. Pedro invited the Timucua tribe to dine with them on that Thanksgiving.

  • The group led by Spanish explorer Juan de Onate in 1598 in San Elizario, Texas held a Thanksgiving festival after successfully crossing 350 miles of Mexican desert.

  • The thirty-eight settlers who landed on James River by Jamestown in December 1619. Their charter required that the day of landing be set aside as a day of thanksgiving both on that first date and every year after.

  • The Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving that took place sometime between September and October of 1621.

Thanksgiving Traditions Origin

The Pilgrim Thanksgiving that happened in the fall of 1621 is the most popular reference to the first Thanksgiving in the US. This is largely because of Sarah Josepha Hale, author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and one of the most influential women in American history.

She was particularly enamored with the Pilgrim event she had read about in a passage by William Bradford in 'Of Plymouth Plantation' as well as the particular Thanksgiving tradition which was somewhat common in New England at the time. She tirelessly campaigned for over 20 years to have Thanksgiving become a national holiday with a set date.

Through her highly circulated editorials, she was largely responsible for much of why we view the Pilgrim’s 1621 Thanksgiving how we do and was also largely responsible for many of the traditions we now tend to attribute to that Thanksgiving, even though there are actually only two brief passages that record what happened during the Thanksgiving celebration in 1621.

Things like the tradition of eating turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving were all popularized by her while it is unlikely that the Pilgrims ate any of those things.

Seventeen Beer Facts

Much beer is guzzled during the holidays so here are a few beer facts that can be used  to impress the relatives.

After he won the Nobel Prize, Niels Bohr was given a perpetual supply of beer piped into his house. (He lived next to a brewery).

The Code of Hammurabi decreed that bartenders who watered down beer would be executed.

At the Annual Wife Carrying World Championships (in Finland), the first prize is the wife's weight in beer.

The builders of the Great Pyramid of Giza were paid with a daily ration of beer.

The top five states for beer consumption per capita: 1. North Dakota, 2. New Hampshire, 3. Montana, 4. South Dakota, 5. Wisconsin.

Germany is home to a beer pipeline. Taps in Veltsin-Arena are connected by a 5km (3 mile) tube of beer.

Thomas Jefferson wrote parts of the Declaration of Independence in a Philadelphia tavern.

George Washington insisted his continental army be permitted a quart of beer as part of their daily rations.

At spas in Europe, you can literally bathe in beer as a physical and mental therapeutic treatment.

In the 1990s, the Beer Lovers Party ran candidates in Belarus and Russia.

J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame invented Quidditch in a pub.

Beer helped Joseph Priestly discover oxygen. He noticed gases rising from the big vats of beer at a brewery and asked to do some experiments.

A Buddhist temple in the Thai countryside was built with over a million recycled beer bottles.

The moon has a crater named Beer.

Beer soup was a common breakfast in medieval Europe.

At the start of Bavarian Beer Week in Germany, an open-air beer fountain dispenses free beer to the public.

In the 1980s, a beer-drinking goat was elected mayor of Lajitas, TX.

Nov 15, 2013

Happy Friday

A bad cause requires many words.

A good cause is just two - Happy Friday!