Feel the Love! - a photo on Flickriver

Feel the Love!

            Chicago-Love!

Double Chicago-Love!

That's hot.

This week is feelin' like one long Friday.

I hope you're feelin' the love this week.

I hope you've got a lot to be thankful for.

Those pilgrims were thankful that the indians bought their bullshit and fed them after half of them starved to death in that first year.

You know I read the manifest for the Mayflower... the ship the pilgrims came over on... one woman brought 83 pairs of shoes... but no one brought a plow...

so they invented this holiday and told the indians that it was custom to bring a bunch of food and they'd all have a party.

It worked.

The indians fell for it.

The indians came with all kinds of grub...

the pilgrims had their first decent meal in a long time...

loosened up those big belt buckles...

argued with their families...

fell asleep on the couch watching 'the game' in the fireplace...

and to show the indians their appreciation gave them all smallpox.

President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863.

Former slaves were pretty thankful... they were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation 272 days earlier.

Most of them still didn't have jobs though.

Freedom was kinda bittersweet with the 'mass layoffs' and all.

Lincoln wanted the entire nation to gather at their tables on the last Thursday of November and give thanks for all the things we had to be thankful for.

A bountiful harvest, the natives being a push-over with poor border control, wooden teeth, horses, having enough wood piled up to heat your cabin for the winter, not being a slave, having to walk to school every day up hill both ways, the six day work week, outhouses, debtors prisons, living past thirty...

President Roosevelt, feeling the pressure of retail merchants during the first Great Depression, moved the holiday up a week in a controversial move in the late thirties.

Retailers knew people didn't start Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving and because there were sometimes five Thursdays in November there was as little as twenty shopping days until Christmas.

Stores weren't open on Sunday then if you're thinkin' I'm doin' some bad math.

People used to spend Sundays with their families and go to these things called 'churches' back then I heard.

Don't matter a lick to me though... 

until the internet came along I did all my shopping on Christmas-Eve anyway.

Roosevelt, being a banker, listened to the retailers and the country was divided on whether to celebrate on the fourth or the fifth Thursday.

A lot of people didn't like Roosevelt messin' with the holiday.

Especially calendar makers who printed their calendars a year before and now they had to throw them all away.

Calendar makers have despised Roosevelt since then.

If you don't believe me try finding Roosevelt's birthday on a calendar.

Calendar makers hadn't been that pissed off since Julius Ceasar added two months to the year a couple thousand years ago.

They didn't say anything then though and they just went along with it...

nobody likes to be crucified.

You gotta be a badass to add two months to the year and name them after yourself.

And a salad.

And that birth procedure.

Indians were pretty unified though... they've always been pretty bummed about the holiday no matter which Thursday it happened to fall on.

In 1941... the United States Congress... obviously not focused too much on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor nineteen days before, passed a law making the fourth Thursday of November a national day of thanks...

and extendin' the Christmas shopping season by a week.

Indians celebrated by getting smallpox vaccinations and having their blankets dry cleaned.

Pilgrims were extinct so they had no comment.

Maybe it's because they dressed kinda funny and that affected their reproductive success if you know what I mean.

I'm thankful for so many things...

I hope you are too.

I'm thankful that starvation's pretty much off the table... my house is heated by natural gas... life expectancy has doubled... I don't hafta trick the indians to survive through the winter... toilet paper... modern medicine... indoor plumbing... smallpox has been eradicated... pilgrims have been eradicated... that I'm surrounded by love and wonderful people... and if I'm 'starving' I can hit up the drive thru or grab some deep-dish.

I love deep-dish.

If I knew any indians I'd invite them over for dinner on Thanksgiving...

Sure...

they'd be skeptical at first.

They'd think it was some kind of a trick no doubt.

But I'd promise to feed them and I'd reassure them that I wasn't gonna give them any plagues or contageous diseases that would wipe them out.

'Let by-gones be bygones' I'd say.

I'd even formally forgive 'em for that whole 'Fort Dearborn Massacre' thing on behalf of the white man.

They were promised that booze.

A promise is a promise man.

Anyone woudda flown off the handle seein' the Commander bustin' up those kegs of whiskey they'd been promised.

The deal was that all the white people could leave unmolested if they just handed over the booze and the guns to the locals.

'Whitey' broke his promise and the indians went ballistic.

I mean...

They could see him smashin' the kegs inside the fort!

Last mistake he ever made.

Killin' the women and the children was probably uncalled for but I'm not gonna judge history.

We cool now.

I'd lay out a feast only Chicago could provide...

Deep-dish pizza... 'talian beefs with giardinera peppers... cheesecake... some Maxwell Street Polish with grilled onions... more sausage... Portillo's cheeseburgers...

We'd have a couple of drinks... 

make merry...

and then make fun of pilgrims.

What ever happened to pilgrims?

You don't hear about the pilgrims anymore.

Rumour has it that the indians accused them of bein' witches.

Puritans prolly kicked their asses to kingdom come.

Kinda took care of that 'problem.'

There's still indians.

I guess indians got the last laugh.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Taken in: United States / Illinois / Chicago / Wrigleyville (show map)

Taken on: November 13, 2011

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Thankful

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I mean 'native americans'

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Camera: Nikon D700, f/4.0, 1/100 sec, 50mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D700
Aperture:	f/4.0
Exposure Time:	0.01 sec (1/100)
Focal Length:	50mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Center-weighted average
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	picnik.com
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