More Thanksgiving Thoughts from Bob Saget

Thank you, Huffington Post, for this "Why I Love Thanksgiving" essay by Bob Saget:

Thanksgiving is a time of family. A time of reflection. A time of giving. And a time of stuffing. It is a time when a man or woman, sometimes a slightly intoxicated man or woman, crams their butter-coated hand into a turkey's butt. [...]

I don't mean to be crass. Technically, it's not actually the turkey's butt. It's more of his 'back hole' -- or if I may be more detailed since my father was knowledgeable in the world of poultry, the turkey's 'two back holes' -- one larger 'back hole' that's really just the under side of the rib cage, and one above the turkey's hangy dangly thing that our family would cook, serve, and eat, but never discuss what it was exactly. When I was younger, my dad would joke with me that I should put that thing under my pillow and that night, the turkey butt fairy would come. I loved my dad more than anything but his sense of humor frightened me.

[...]

When I drive past a house during the holidays, and I see the smoke billowing out of a fireplace, I know, that inside that house, on that kitchen table, there's a turkey carcass, open-winged, open-legged, its body ripped apart and eaten by the entire family. If that turkey could talk, its last words would probably be, "I'll see you all in hell!! And which one of you ate my hangy dangly thing that used to be my ass!!"

The American Holiday Known As Thanksgiving

I never knew that it was the woman who wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb", Sarah Josepha Hale, who campaigned to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Or, as the wikipedia elegantly puts it: "She famously campaigned for the creation of the American holiday known as Thanksgiving." I love the stiff prose of wikiworld. Hale was also an advocate for eating the American bird known as turkey. Turkeys are found in the American continent known as North America. Here's your wikipedia history lesson of the day:

Hale is credited as the individual most responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday in the United States; it had previously been celebrated only in New England. Each state scheduled its own holiday, some as early as October and others as late as January; it was largely unknown in the American South. Her advocacy for the national holiday began in 1846 and lasted 17 years before it was successful. In support of the proposed national holiday, she wrote letters to five Presidents of the United States -- Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. Her initial letters failed to persuade, but the letter she wrote to Lincoln did convince him to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863.

Impressive. What a legacy! Both "Mary Had a Little Lamb" & Thanksgiving? That's like being credited with creating both smiles & kittens. I need to start writing repeated letters to as many presidents as possible to advocate for McGonagall Supper to become official. (McGonagall Supper is a dinner in honor of bad poetry held on September 29th, the day William McGonagall, the English language's worst poet, died. Mark your calendars! Write to your representative!) In the meantime, happy thanksgiving, & I leave you with the subtly secular Walt Whitman quote I read as our prayer before our family's thanksgiving dinner every year:

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are.

-Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road (1892)

another thanksgiving prayer

my thanksgiving recitation is this prayer (see left) that my parents wrote the first thanksgiving after they were married- 1972. I am thankful to have been born to people who have the same general sentiments I do on this day.

(my mom composed in script- my dad's edits are in print)

Happy Thanks

The image above is made entirely of vegetables. (There's more here.)
I've read the poem below for several years at the Welsch Family thanksgivings, as a sort of secular blessing, & I will read it today. Happy Thanks!

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are.

-Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road (1892)

Quotes & In Conversation

Suggesting that we stop recognizing married people:

Yesterday I called a woman’s spouse her boyfriend.

She says, correcting me, “He’s my husband,”
“Oh,” I say, “I no longer recognize marriage.”

The impact is obvious. I tried it on a man who has been in a relationship for years,

“How’s your longtime companion, Jill?”
“She’s my wife!”
“Yeah, well, my beliefs don’t recognize marriage.”

President-elect-elect Obama on the manly dog he will be bringing to the White House:

Barack Obama [asking about Barbara Walters' dog]: "Cha Cha?"

Barbara Walters: "It's short for Cha Cha Cha."

Obama: "What is a Havanese?"

Walters: "It's like a little terrier and they're non-allergenic and they're the sweetest dogs.."

Obama: [Face suddenly changes.] "It's like a little yappy dog?"

Michelle Obama: "Don't criticize."

Obama: "It, like, sits in your lap and things?"

Michelle: "It's a cute dog."

Obama: "It sounds kinda like a girly dog."

Michelle: "We're girls. We have a houseful of girls."

Obama [with hand gestures]: "We're going to have a big rambunctious dog, of some sort."

I do also believe that this is the finest & wittiest Obama impersonator:

Go read Dave Eggers' funny Thanksgiving play in the New York Times,
& Sarah Palin Poetry:

And the relevance to me
With that issue,
As we spoke
About Africa and some
Of the countries
There that were
Kind of the people succumbing
To the dictators
And the corruption
Of some collapsed governments
On the Continent,
The relevance
Was Alaska’s.

What the philistine media take for incoherence is, in fact, the fruitful ambiguity of verse.

Here she is, in a work I have taken to calling “The Relevance of Africa.” (Not a single word or comma has been changed, but the line breaks are placed where they naturally fall.) In it, Palin blends the energy of free verse with the austerity of a classic 14-line sonnet... A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges. A great poet does not self-censor; Sarah Palin seems authentically innocent of what she is saying. She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake.

-Julian Gaugh

I just went "Pro" on Nintendo Wii Baseball

I came to my parents' house at Lake Tahoe for the Thanksgiving week, with a long to-do list (including a grad-school application, a checkbook, & a few cluttered thoughts). So far my only accomplishment is to go "Pro" on the Nintendo Wii Baseball, meaning my "skill level" topped the 1000 point theshold, which took many visits home in the last year. Congratulations! Out of the Park! For a man who grew up without video games, missed them as a recreation in college, possesses only a haphazard understanding of baseball rules & stradegy, this is a weird monumental achievement. My right arm muscles are aching sore from the Wii controller. My character, JamesHenry, looks a lot like me, except without legs. My complaints about the game are: A) No double plays, B) My lame outfield consists of my father & brother's avatars, who, like Manny Ramiriz, is occasionally clutch & occasionally drops the ball, C) It's hard to tell when the computer is pitching a fastball or a splitter, but I guess that's the point. Now, as thanks for achieving Pro status, I'm getting squished by the computer's pro opponants.