OT - an interesting thanksgiving perspective

[Doc B.]

Was reading "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn a while back. The coming holiday reminded me of his discussion of the Pilgrims' near starvation and the Native Americans' bailing them out by feeding them, that led to the US Thanksgiving holiday. Zinn argues that the Pilgrims nearly starved merely because they were completely lacking self sufficiency - not exactly the "pioneering spirit" that we Americans love to brag about. Their "crisis" was from a lack of any servants to gather food and cook for them. When the Natives stepped in to help the Pilgrims hoped they had discovered a new class of servants so they wouldn't have to figure out how to feed themselves. Zinn suggests that if the starving Pilgrims had more moxie they could have gorged on some of the estimated several million lobsters that were in the water around them instead of mooching off the Natives.

[Paul Joppa]

So that's why we all try to go to someone else's house for Thanksgiving dinner?  :^)

[Doc B.]

What time should you expect me? ;^)>

My contribution to our multi-family thanksgiving this year is 2 fifths of home-infused 90 proof gin - carefully aged for 48 hours. My cousin is bringing some of his homebrew beer "in case the gin doesn't kill us outright."

Hey Peej I was reading a little more about the new law in Washington State that allows one to purchase a license to distill spirits for $100 and to sell up to 2 fifths per day by direct sales. Turns out the grain for the spirit must be grown in WA, i.e. at this point you can't redistill anyone's vodka to make gin except for Dry Fly vodka out of Spokane. If you guessed that Dry Fly's lawyer was the one who pushed the new law through, you would be correct...

[Paul Joppa]

Gosh, now if you only knew someone with tons of homemade wine from Washington grape that they'll never get around to drinking up ...  have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

[Paul Birkeland]

Colin sure will like the gin huh!

[ironbut]

Cheers my fine fellows.

Here's hoping that the Thanksgiving rabbit fills your stockings with something other than palm leaves!

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By ironbut at 2009-11-25

[Jim R.]

Happy Thanksgiving to the whole BH bunch.

We'll be doing it up with a bunch of friends and neighbors (about 40 in all) with a couple of turkeys (one deep fried), some ducks, a ham or two, and who knows what else.

Hope you all have as rich a time with family and/or friends as we will this year.

-- Jim