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Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.   

 
Just don't eat too much ... !

Today is  - Thanksgiving

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

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Wasco, Decatur, Magaila and Yakima, United States

Jundiai, Curitiba and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

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Halifax, Longueuil, Quebec and Toronto, Canada

Buenous Aires, Argentina

Luquillo, Puerto Rico

Montevideo, Uruguay

Europe

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London and Maidenhead, England

Prague, Czech Republic

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Milan, Rome, Ravenna, Bari, Treviso, Naples and Florence, Italy

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Bergen and Oslo, Norway

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Dublin, Ireland

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Hong Kong, Hong Kong

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Africa

Johannesburg, South Africa

The Pacific

Homebush, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, Australia

Today in History

43 BC   Octavian, Antony and Lepidus form the triumvirate of Rome.  
511   Clovis, king of the Franks, dies and his kingdom is divided between his four sons.  
1095   In Clermont, France, pope Urbana II makes an appeal for warriors to relieve Jerusalem. He is responding to false rumors of atrocities in the Holy Land.
1382   The French nobility, led by Olivier de Clisson, crush the Flemish rebels at Flanders.
1812   One of the two bridges being used by Napoleon Bonaparte's army across the Beresina River in Russia collapses during a Russian artillery barrage.  
1826   Jebediah Smith's expedition reaches San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the southwestern part of the continent.  
1862   George Armstrong Custer meets his future bride, Elizabeth Bacon, at a Thanksgiving party.  
1868   Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry kills Chief Black Kettle and about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita River.  
1887   U.S. Deputy Marshall Frank Dalton, brother of the three famous outlaws, is killed in the line of duty near Fort Smith, Ark.  
1904   The German colonial army defeats Hottentots at Warm bad in southwest Africa.  
1909   U.S. troops land in Blue fields, Nicaragua, to protect American interests there.  
1919   Bulgaria signs peace treaty with Allies at Unequally, France, fixing war reparations and recognizing Yugoslavian independence.  
1922   Allied delegates bar the Soviets from the Near East peace conference.  
1936   Great Britain's Anthony Eden warns Hitler that Britain will fight to protect Belgium.  
1942   The French fleet in Toulon is scuttled to keep it from Germany.  
1950   East of the Choosing River, Chinese forces annihilate an American task force.
1954   Alger Hiss, convicted of being a Soviet spy, is freed after 44 months in prison.  
1959   Demonstrators march in Tokyo to protest a defense treaty with the United States.  
1967   Lyndon Johnson appoints Robert McNamara to presidency of the World Bank.
1967   Charles DeGaulle vetoes Great Britain's entry into the Common Market again.  
1970   Syria joins the pact linking Libya, Egypt and Sudan.  
1973   US Senate votes to confirm Gerald Ford as President of the United States, following President Richard Nixon's resignation; the House will confirm Ford on Dec. 6.  
1978   San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the city's first openly gay supervisor, assassinated by former city supervisor Dan White.  
1978   Kurdistan Workers' Party (Parti Karkerani Kurdistan, or PKK) founded; militant group that fought an armed struggle for an independent Kurdistan.  
1984   Britain and Spain sign the Brussels Agreement to enter discussions over the status of Gibraltar.  
1999   Helen Clark becomes first elected female Prime Minister of New Zealand.
2001   Hubble Space Telescope discovers a hydrogen atmosphere on planet Osiris, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.  
2004   pope John Paul II returns relics of Saint John Chrysostom to the Eastern Orthodox Church.  
2005   First partial human face transplant completed Amiens, France.
 2006  Canadian House of Commons approves a motion, tabled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, recognizing the Quebecois as a nation within Canada.

Editorial Comment

Once again we here at Carolina Naturally are celebrating a Holiday by featuring posts about the holiday.
Just as we did for Samhain (aka: Halloween) we are posting stories and images of the holiday.
Although most Americans think of it as a uniquely American holiday Thanksgiving is actually celebrated in several countries including our neighbor to the north, Canada. While other countries have similar holidays to celebrate the harvest as well.
Harvest festivals have been around since there has been a harvest in cultures around the world - even the aforementioned holiday we celebrated on the last Saturday in October is a harvest festival.
Enjoy your holiday but remember that Turkey does have a chemical in it that induces drowsiness - it is NOT an old wives tale - so indulge accordingly.

The Truth Be Told

The modern meaning of Thanksgiving - It's all about spending money to 'simulate' the economy

The forgotten first president (Hint: It wasn’t George Washington)

by Rick Klein, Richard Coolidge and Jordyn Phelps

Here’s a Thanksgiving pop quiz: Who was the nation’s first president?

If you answered George Washington, pass the gravy and get ready for a history lesson. It was actually John Hanson, a founding father whose name is largely forgotten in the pages of American history – until now.

“They were both first presidents. We've had two governments,” said Peter Michael, a descendent of Hanson’s who is working to revive his memory as the first president of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation, the precursor to the Constitution.

“George Washington was very famously the first president of our second government under the Constitution,” Michael said during a recent interview outside a replica of Hanson’s historic home in Frederick, Maryland. “But for eight years before the birth of that second government, we had an original government chartered under the Articles of Confederation. It had its presidents, the first of whom was John Hanson."

Michael, who has authored a biography about his ancestor’s life and also presides over a memorial association in his honor, explained that Hanson played a central role in putting the United States on solid footing in the wake of the Revolutionary War.

“John Hanson and his Congress inherited a blank slate and had to create a government from whole cloth and they did -- and successfully,” Michael said. “If they hadn't, the United States might not have existed."

Under the Articles of the Confederation, the young United States was governed under a single unified government, without separate executive and legislative branches. And Hanson, as an elder statesman at age 66, was nominated by his peers in Congress to lead the fragile new government in 1781.

“The American icons of the Revolutionary period -- Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, [and] others -- looked to John Hanson as the one [who] twice saved the nation and also to Hanson's way with people,” Michael said. “When no one else could do it, he persuaded the six states with the western lands to cede the western lands.”

We also have Hanson to thank for Thanksgiving.

"Thanksgiving, as an observance, had been recognized since the days of the pilgrims,” Michael said. “But it fell to John Hanson to establish Thanksgiving as an official annual observed holiday. It became a paid holiday, and a day off, in the Franklin Roosevelt administration."

Hanson served a one-year term as president and died a year later in 1783.

But in the decades and centuries following his death, Hanson’s memory would be largely forgotten to history. So forgotten, in fact, that his home in Frederick, Maryland, was demolished in the 1980s (a replica has since been built in its place) and his grave, in Prince George’s Country, Maryland, was paved over to make way for a parking lot. The burial site remains unmarked today.

What if ...

Countries that celebrate Thanksgiving

Canada

Thanksgiving (French: l'Action de grâce), occurring on the second Monday in October, is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. Although the original act of Parliament references dog and the holiday is celebrated in cults, the holiday is mostly celebrated in a secular manner. Thanksgiving is a statutory holiday in all provinces in Canada, except for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. While businesses may remain open in these provinces, the holiday is nonetheless recognized and celebrated regardless of its status.

Grenada

In the West Indian island of Grenada, there is a national holiday known as Thanksgiving Day which is celebrated on October 25. Even though it bears the same name, and is celebrated at roughly the same time as the American and Canadian versions of Thanksgiving, this holiday is unrelated to either of those celebrations. Instead the holiday marks the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the island in 1983, in response to the deposition and execution of Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.

Liberia

In the West African country of Liberia, which began in 1820 with the colonization of freed black slaves (Americo-Liberians) from the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the first Thursday of November.

The Netherlands

Many of the puritans who migrated to the Plymouth Plantation had resided in the city of Leiden from 1609–1620, many of whom had recorded their births, marriages and deaths at the Pieterskerk. To commemorate this, a non-denominational Thanksgiving Day service is held each year on the morning of the American Thanksgiving Day in the Pieterskerk, a Gothic cult in Leiden, to commemorate the hospitality the puritans received in Leiden on their way to the New World.

Norfolk Island

In the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Wednesday of November, similar to the pre-World War II American observance on the last Thursday of the month. This means the Norfolk Island observance is the day before or six days after the United States' observance. The holiday was brought to the island by visiting American whaling ships.

United States

Thanksgiving, currently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November by federal legislation in 1941, has been an annual tradition in the United States by presidential proclamation since 1863 and by state legislation since the Founding Fathers of the United States. Historically, Thanksgiving has traditionally been a celebration of the blessings of the (agricultural) year, including the harvest.

Similar holidays

Germany

The Harvest Thanksgiving Festival, Erntedankfest, is an early October, German festival, includes large harvest dinners (consisting mostly of autumn crops) and parades^. The Bavarian beer festival Oktoberfest generally takes place within the vicinity of Erntedankfest.

Japan

Labor Thanksgiving Day (勤労感謝の日 Kinrō Kansha no Hi) is a national holiday in Japan. It takes place annually on November 23. The law establishing the holiday, which was adopted during the American occupation after World War II, cites it as an occasion for commemorating labor and production and giving one another thanks. It has roots in an ancient harvest ceremony (Niiname-sai (新嘗祭)) celebrating hard work.

History of American Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving Day , set aside for the special purpose of prayer and celebrations, was decreed by Governor William Bradford in July 30, 1623.
There were harvest festivals, or days of thanking the gods for plentiful crops because that year the fall harvest was very successful and plentiful after a period of drought.
There was corn, fruits, vegetables, along with fish which was packed in salt, and meat that was smoke cured over fires.
The Governor proclaimed a day of thanksgiving that was to be shared by all the colonists and the neighboring Native American Indians.
The event, however, was a one-time celebration and was not intended to be an annual festival.
It was not even repeated the following year. It was only after 55 years that another Thanksgiving Day was officially proclaimed.
The Governing Council of Charlestown, Massachusetts convened on June 20, 1676 to weigh how to best express thanks for the good fortune that had secured the establishment of their community.
By unanimous vote, Edward Rawson (the Clerk of the Council) was instructed to announce June 29 as a Day of Thanksgiving that year.
But this time also the event proved to be just a one-time event.
Then the Continental Congress suggested a day of national thanksgiving during the American Revolution in late 1770's. In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom, and by the middle of the 19th century many other states also did the same.
In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a national day of thanksgiving.
Since then each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, usually designating the fourth Thursday of each November as the holiday for Thanksgiving in America.

History and Origin of Canadian Thanksgiving

There are three traditions behind Canadian Thanksgiving Day:

1. The farmers in Europe held celebrations at the time of harvesting to give thanks for their good fortune of a bountiful harvest and abundance of food.
The farmers would fill a goat's curved horn with fruits and grains.
This curved horn was known as a cornucopia or the horn of plenty.
It is believed that when the European farmers came to Canada they brought this tradition of Thanksgiving with them.
2. The history of Thanksgiving in Canada is related to Martin Frobisher, who was an English navigator.
He made a lot of efforts to find a northern passage to the Orient.
Though he did not succeed in his efforts but he was able to establish a settlement in Northern America.
In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now known as Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey.
This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving. Martin Frobisher was later knighted and an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada was named as ' Frobisher Bay' after him.
When other settlers arrived here they continued this ceremony of giving thanks.
3. The third influence occurred in 1621 in what is now the United States.
Here the English colonists, celebrated their first harvest in the New World at Plymouth Massachusetts.
By the 1750s this celebration of harvest was brought to Nova Scotia by American settlers from the south.
In the 1600s, another navigator Samuel de Champlain crossed the ocean and arrived to Canada.
Other French Settlers also came with him and their group held huge feasts of thanks for the harvests.
On this event they shared their food with the Native American neighbors and thus involved them in their celebrations.
Then they formed ' The Order of Good Cheer' which marked the harvests and other events as well.
After the Seven Year's War ended in 1763, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.
During the American Revolution the Americans who remained loyal to England moved to Canada.
They brought with themselves the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada.
In 1879, the Parliament declared 6th day of November as the day of Thanksgiving and also declared it a national holiday.
Over the years different dates were used for celebrating the Thanksgiving Day in Canada but the most popular date was the 3rd Monday of October.
After World War I, both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving Day were celebrated on a common day that was Monday of the week in which fell the 11th day of November.
Ten years later, in 1931, both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving Day became separate holidays and Armistice Day was renamed as the 'Remembrance Day'.
Finally, on January 31st, 1957, the Parliament issued a proclamation to fix permanently the 2nd Monday in October as the Thanksgiving Day. The Proclamation goes as...

"A Day of General Thanksgiving for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed ... to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October…"

Historical Photos

Mary Philbin

Thanksgiving Football

Thanksgiving postcard circa 1900 showing a turkey and football player. 

American football is one of the many traditions in American culture that is associated with Thanksgiving Day. Virtually every level of football, from amateur and high school to college and the NFL (and even the CFL on Canadian Thanksgiving), plays football on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday) or the immediately following holiday weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday).
Thanksgiving Day football games in the United States are nearly as old as the game itself.
The first Thanksgiving Day football game took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Thanksgiving Day of 1869, less than two weeks after Rutgers defeated Princeton in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in what is widely considered to have been the first American Football game.
On November 17, 1869, the Evening Telegraph newspaper of Philadelphia published the following announcement: "Foot Ball: A foot-ball match between twenty-two players of the Young America Cricket Club and the Germantown Cricket Club will take place on Thanksgiving Day at 12 1/2 o'clock, on the grounds of the Germantown Club."
The proximity of Philadelphia to both Rutgers and Princeton invites speculation that this game may have been played under similar rules and perhaps involved some of the same participants, or at least people familiar with the game played at Rutgers, and a second match at Princeton, earlier that month.
Princeton played Yale in the New York City area on Thanksgiving Day from 1876 through 1881. 
The Thanksgiving Day football game became an institutionalized fixture of organized football in 1882, when the Intercollegiate Football Association determined to hold an annual collegiate championship game in New York City on Thanksgiving Day between the two leading teams in the association.
Previously, the 'Champion' was to be determined by a team's records over the entire season against all members of the association.
For at least the three previous years, the championship had been a matter of dispute as a result of Yale and Princeton playing to scoreless ties on three Thanksgiving Day games in a row.
The tradition of playing football games on Thanksgiving continues to this day.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is another attraction of the Thanksgiving Day in America. This parade is held every year in New York city and TV audiences enjoy its broadcast also.

Thanksgiving Spirit

Few years back on one Thanksgiving Day I went to the store to buy turkey with my parents. 

After buying it when we were coming back to home we saw an accident. 

A car hit a young girl and fled away. 

The poor girl was slightly injured and needed help. 

We took her to the doctor and then dropped her to her home. 

Her mother thanked us again and again. 

That day I realized the true spirit of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Poem

Thanksgiving

The year has turned its circle,

The seasons come and go.

The harvest all is gathered in

And chilly north winds blow.

Orchards have shared their treasures,

The fields, their yellow grain,

So open wide the doorway ---

Thanksgiving comes again!

Daily Comic Relief

Twenty Facts About Turkeys

On Thanksgiving, the odds are high that a turkey will be laid out on many of our dinner tables. How do you all feel about turkey? Is a roasted bird something you look forward to or something you avoid? Do you have any turkey-free Thanksgiving traditions? What dish do you most eagerly anticipate this year? Comment away.
But first, here are twenty facts about turkeys that you may not be aware of. One fact is, to female turkeys, size matters. Snood size, to be exact. The snood is the long, red protuberance hanging off of the turkey's beak in the picture above. A study in the Journal of Avian Biology reports that female turkeys prefer their male counterparts to have long snoods; snood length can also predict the winner of a competition between two males. I wonder if some poor guy turkeys suffer from snood insecurity? That's some insult to add to the injury of being eaten on T-day.

Modern Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Today

The Case of the Missing Turkey Leg

by Judy Solomon

The excitement about Thanksgiving was really building that year. Grandma arrived early with a homemade pecan pie in one hand and a pound cake in the other. Dad was poking around in a cabinet, searching for his electric carving knife. Mama was in the kitchen tapping the pots with a spoon and humming Turkey in the Straw. Little Lonnie bounced up and down on his diapered bottom, keeping time to the music. Dad smelled the air and sighed. My big brother, Slim, who was anything but slim, sneaked off to his room with a slice of the pecan pie. Even Fido was wagging his tail.

Mama stretched a new, white tablecloth over the dining room table. She put cardboard Pilgrims and colorful fall leaves from the craft store in the center, and she set the table with real china and real silverware. Then she looked up, smiling. "Help me carry in the food," she said.

Slim, who had come out of his room by this time, went racing into the kitchen. "I'll get it! I'll get it!" he screamed. The rest of us piled in behind him, with everyone grabbing a pan or a dish. Into the dining room came the dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, and corn, Grandma's pound cake and the pecan pie, minus a slice. We placed the pans and dishes on the sideboard and looked up to watch Dad carry in the biggest, brownest, best-smelling turkey we had ever seen with Mama's hand under the platter, just in case. Together they lowered the turkey to its place at the head of the table.

It was the tradition in our family for each of us to think of something for which we were most thankful, and we knew Mama wouldn't let us eat until we had done it. We all ran to the table yelling something like "I'm thankful for Grandma" or "I'm thankful for school being out" or "I'm thankful for pecan pie!" All eyes were on that enormous turkey as we took our seats at the table.

Yes, everything was perfect except for one thing. Three hundred sixty-four days of the year Mama served the dinner, but not on Thanksgiving. That was the one day of the year when Dad sat at the head of the table and carved the turkey. It was an honor that he had eagerly anticipated for days in advance, as he discussed the relative merits of white meat versus dark meat, thick pieces versus thin pieces, with gravy and cranberry sauce, or without. Now Dad was not a well-coordinated man. He frequently tripped over his own two feet, and he could be counted on to drop just about anything. He was said to have two left thumbs, or as Mama sometimes called him, he was a clumsy ox.

That's why we all eased back from the table just a bit when Dad plugged in the electric carving knife, and we all eased back just a bit more when he tested it in the air. Dad went to work on the white meat first with surprisingly few problems. Slice after slice landed neatly on the platter. Dad leaned forward and grabbed the end of the left turkey leg and cut it off at the thigh joint, placing it whole on the platter beside the white meat. His oily fingers glistened in the light of the chandelier, and Mama waved her napkin. "I'm all right, Mama," he said. "I'm all right."

But as Dad leaned forward to pull back the right turkey leg, a button from his cardigan sweater caught under the edge of the platter. He pulled back the turkey leg and lowered the electric carving knife to the thigh joint. The turkey leg slipped from his slippery fingers and popped back to its original position, splattering Dad's sweater with gravy. As Dad jumped backward to avoid the gravy, the button from his sweater lifted the edge of the platter. He dropped the carving knife and grabbed the platter. Slim and I jumped from the table in terror as the carving knife fell to the floor and began chewing the table leg. Dad looked down at the fallen carving knife and lost his balance. As he started to fall, he tossed the turkey and platter in the air. He regained his footing just in time to grab the platter and slip it under the falling turkey. Mama quickly unplugged the carving knife and placed it on the table.

"A mess!" screamed Mama. "What a mess!" She ran around the table with a napkin, mad as a wet hen, wiping drips of turkey stock from her new, white tablecloth. Finally Mama settled down, and we all pulled our chairs back up to the table. Dad looked at Mama. "At least I saved the turkey," he said.

"Tucky leg!" yelled Lonnie, bouncing and kicking in his seat. "Tucky leg! Tucky leg!"

All of us looked at the turkey. Lonnie was right! A turkey leg was missing. We looked around the room, under the table, at each other. We looked at Fido, who was standing at the toddler gate licking his lips. Little Lonnie began to cry softly for he was the one who had expressed that he was most thankful for turkey legs.

Just then a brown blob of turkey juice landed on a Pilgrim and dripped down its costume. Everyone looked upward. There, balanced on the top of the chandelier, was the missing turkey leg.

"Clumsy ox," muttered Mama under her breath

What Most People Don’t Realize is Behind Their Thanksgiving Dinner

You can picture it now, can’t you? The familiar sounds of a parade or football game playing on the TV while little ones chase each other through the house. More friends and family members than you can ever remember in one place at the same time. And the aroma … those delightful smells that let you know it’s a holiday. You see the table surrounded by mismatched chairs, dinnerware and cutlery. And on that table, neatly decorated with the rich colors of the season, sit bowls filled with traditional fare and in the center of it all, the pièce de résistance – the golden brown bird around which the entire meal is built. Turkey. The year’s most prestigious meal!
Chances are, as you sit down to that mouthwatering Thanksgiving dinner, the last thing on your mind is a compost facility, or prescribed grazing, or any other conservation practice. In fact, unless you’re either a farmer or employed by USDA, you’ve probably never even heard of them. But these conservation practices all have a lot to do with the food products you consume.
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) works with farmers and ranchers all across the country to keep the nation’s soil, water, animals, plants and air healthy, in turn, helping keep all of us healthy.
How does it work? Let’s use the example of Ekonk Turkey Farm, in Moosup – Connecticut’s largest pasture-raised turkey producer. Each year, this family-run business produces 3,000 turkeys and more than 2,000 chickens, along with geese and capons.
Farm owners Rick and Elena Hermonot have been working with NRCS since 2010. Through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, they have been able to implement a nutrient management plan, and install an efficient composting system that allows them to combine all the leftover animal materials and waste and have it break down naturally, leaving them with clean, healthy compost that they use to fertilize their fields.
This type of system also ensures that waste doesn’t get washed off the fields into groundwater or local waterways, keeping your water clean.
The Hermonot’s have also worked with NRCS to implement a prescribed grazing system that allows the fowl to roam free and eat a healthy diet from the pasture.
So whether you’re a vegetarian or a carnivore, you benefit because the programs that NRCS offers and that producer’s voluntarily implement help to keep our food supply safe and healthy, and that is something for which to give thanks!