The weekend is upon us. I'm heading down to Columbus to watch the Buckeyes of The Ohio State University play football against some other team tomorrow. It's not even close to Thanksgiving, but the Christmas shopping season is upon us. I could not find candy corn in Marc's, a store that stocked hundreds of thousands of bags of candy corn and Indian corn from floor to ceiling -- removed from the shelves and replaced with Christmas stuff.
I don't understand this significant slight of the Thanksgiving holiday. It's not just a football day, after all; it's a day to celebrate the generosity of the Native Americans in sharing their local food knowledge with ignorant foreigners.
According to the U.S. History book I'm using to tutor a 10th grader, which differs from what I remember from elementary school, the Native Americans introduced the Pilgrims to turkey and sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes and gravy and pumpkin pie and candy corn. So, why isn't candy corn still in stock at Marc's?
And I always thought that the Pilgrims, in exchange for their saving the Pilgrims from certain extinction, gave the Native Americans syphilis -- something like that. That's not in the history book, but I told the kid that anyway. Then he wanted to know how the Pilgrims gave the Native Americans syphilis. I wasn't sure what I was allowed to tell him; after all, this is a Christian organization sponsoring the tutoring sessions.
I told him that he should ask his parents about that one, but I did tell him that I thought that the Pilgrims had given the Native Americans Aqua Dots and told the Native Americans to suck on them. I'm thinking that he didn't believe me, but that he might get the idea.
So, if Marc's had candy corn, this would have never happened.
Posted by Bill at November 9, 2007 07:46 PM"some other team" -- That's cold, Bill. Real cold.
Posted by: Joel at November 10, 2007 01:38 AMThanksgiving gets no respect because it lacks the dubious context necessary to fuel a good sectarian argument. It does offend some people, but they're reaching and they know it. I mean if you wanted to excoriate the neighbors for observing Thanksgiving - or failing to do so - what would you do? Burn a plywood turkey on their lawn?
Posted by: Kyle at November 10, 2007 02:38 AMDidn't they give them colds too?
Posted by: Anji at November 11, 2007 09:24 AMHa---"a plywood turkey on their lawn" would be great!!
Bill, this kid outta' have a great time discussing the issues during "the family table" times :)