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LITTLE JOHNNY crawled into the warm bed
"No more video games!" said his father, as he gently pushed the covers up under Johnny's chin. "You need to get a good night's rest because tomorrow is a big day. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving."
"Daddy, what is Thanksgiving?" Johnny asked with the inquisitiveness of a 5-year-old.
"Thanksgiving is the day when we eat turkey and watch the Dallas Cowboys on television!" his father answered.
"Oh, goody!" said Johnny with a big smile. "I like the Dallas Cowboys!" Then he frowned. "But I don't like turkey. I'd rather have a burrito from Taco Bell."
"OK! So go to sleep and maybe I'll run out at halftime and get you a burrito," his father said.
"OK!" the child replied.
The father got up and was about to cut off the light when Johnny asked the inevitable next question.
"Daddy, will you tell me a story?"
The father came back and sat down on the side of the bed.
"If I tell you one story will you go to sleep?" he asked.
"Yes, Daddy."
"Okay! One story! And that's it! Understand?"
"OK, Daddy. What story are you going to tell me? The one about those old giants?"
"No, Son," the father said. "Tiki Barber doesn't play tomorrow. It's the Cowboys, not the Giants, that play on Thanksgiving Day, remember?"
"What story are you going to tell me, then?"
The father smiled.
"I'm going to tell you about the first Thanksgiving," he said.
The father sat for a moment in silence, thinking about how he would begin, but Johnny became impatient.
"Come on, Daddy! Tell the story!"
"The first Thanksgiving happened a long, long time ago when America was very young," the father began. "It was the Pilgrims who celebrated the first Thanksgiving."
"Who were the Pilgrims?" Johnny asked.
"They were a group of people who came to America seeking religious freedom," the father explained.
"What kind of religious freedom?"
"Well, in England, where the Pilgrims were from, everybody had to go to the same church "
"You mean like when we go to Grandma's house we have to go to her church?" Johnny asked.
"Not exactly," his father said. "You see, in America there are a lot of churches. In England they had only one church."
"Gee!" said Johnny. "I bet it took a long time to count all the money at that church on Sunday!"
"Anyway," continued the father, "the Pilgrims wanted to come to America where they could go to any church they wanted."
"I bet that was a big plate those deacons passed around in that England church!" Johnny, his mind still in his wallet, said.
"As I was saying, the Pilgrims heard that there were all these different churches in America, so they wanted to come here," the father said. "So they got on a big boat and sailed across the ocean."
"Like the 'Pirates of the Caribbean'?" Johnny asked.
"Kinda, except they sailed north toward Plymouth Rock instead of south toward Disney World," explained the father.
"What's Plymouth Rock?" Johnny asked.
"It's this big old rock on the beach just outside of Boston, you know, where the Red Sox play."
"Do the Red Sox play on Plymouth Rock?"
"No, Son, but I think their little boys and girls do while they're playing baseball," the father said. "Anyhow, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, found a church they liked and started going there.
"But that first winter was a long, cold one with lots and lots of snow "
"Gee!" interrupted Johnny. "I bet those kids at Plymouth Rock Elementary School got all kinds of snow days that year."
"Anyway, it was so cold and snowy that the Pilgrims almost starved," continued the father.
"Why didn't they go to the grocery store?" the child asked.
"They didn't have any money, son."
"Gee, Dad! Mom goes to the grocery store and she just uses her credit card."
"The stores in Plymouth Rock didn't take credit cards," the father said.
"They couldn't use their credit cards?" the child asked in horror. "How could they buy anything off the Internet?"
"But the next summer the Pilgrims planted corn and squash and pumpkins, and they worked real hard and everything grew and in the fall they had all this good food "
"Squash and pumpkins?" Johnny asked. "You call that good food? Yuk!"
"So, when the harvest was in, the Pilgrims got together with the Indians "
"You mean the Cleveland Indians?"
"No, Johnny, the real Indians."
"My teacher says they are Native Americans, not Indians "
"Whatever! Anyway, the Native Americans brought deer they had shot with their bows and arrows "
"They shot the poor little deer? And the Pilgrims let them do it? They must have been bad people."
"And they brought turkeys," continued the father, "and they had a big feast to thank God for helping them through the winter and providing them with plenty of food for the coming winter."
"Did they shoot the poor little turkeys, too?"
"No, they didn't shoot the turkeys," the father, knowing that he was now on politically incorrect ground, replied. "They went way up in the mountains where it was cold and got frozen turkeys."
"Oh!" Johnny said. Then he frowned. "Betcha God didn't like them shooting those poor little deer."
"He didn't," the father said. "In, fact, he later sent witches to punish them."
"I'm glad!" smiled Johnny. "Did the Pilgrims invite anyone but the Indians, Dad? Did they invite the people from the other churches, too?"
"Yes, even the Muslims."
"Who are the Muslims, Dad?"
"They are people who go to a church where they all wear sheets, you know, Muslim sheets, like Mama buys."
"Oh, yeah!" said Johnny.
"So the Pilgrims ate Thanksgiving dinner and then they watched the Cowboys' game on TV just like we're going to do tomorrow," said the father. "And that was the first Thanksgiving."
Johnny thought for a moment.
"Did the department stores in Plymouth Rock take credit cards?" the boy asked.
"No! None of the stores in Plymouth Rock took credit cards back then," the father replied.
"Then how did the Pilgrims buy TV sets to watch the Cowboys' game?" Johnny wanted to know.
"You'll have to ask your mother that," the father, now frustrated, replied.
Johnny started to yell for his mother.
"Not now! Tomorrow when you wake up," came a quick order.
The father kissed his son on the forehead, got up and turned off the light. He was about to walk out the door when the little boy said, "Dad, I bet those Muslims wished the stores in Plymouth Rock took credit cards."
"Why is that, Son?"
"They could have used their credit cards to buy real clothes and then they wouldn'ta had to walk around in those sheets!"
"Goodnight, Johnny," the father said.
The door closed.
DONNIE JOHNSTON is a staff writer with The Free Lance-Star. Send e-mail marked to his attention to
Email: gwoolf@freelancestar.com.
