...And so it came to pass that on the 25th day of November in the year of our Lord 1621, the 53 surviving Pilgrims stood cold and shivering outside of Cromwell's Department store at 5am. Their hopes were high that this might be the year they would finally score some sweet deals on those funny shoes with the buckles on top. Clad in outfits deemed to be the height of Puritan fashion, this monochomatic mayhem was thus dubbed Blacke Fridaye. Getting Christmas presents for all 13 of their children was no easy feat, even for these hardy folk. They needed sustenance, so the women organized a feast the day before in order to carb up. Historians now agree that relations between the European colonists and Native folks had been rather friendly up to this point. Then Gov. William Bradford's wife served Squanto a green bean casserole WITHOUT the crunchy onion stuff on top, and poor Squanto “accidentally” spilled cranberry sauce on the white table cloth and...things just went downhill from there.
Squanto, who was known throughout the colony for his edgy sense of fashion, decided to finish his turkey and pie quickly in order to go deer hunting before everyone else. He needed some new leather boots before the next smallpox outbreak. Squanto tried to sneak away from the table quietly, but Col. Myles Standish was on to him. A loud argument ensued over who would hunt in what part of the woods. They decided to settle the dispute with a contest. The winner would be awarded his own area to hunt, a faster horse, AND the prettiest girl from Plymouth Rock to Jamestown. The two men were given a ball covered in the skin of a wild boar. Each took a turn running as quickly as he could with the ball, marking his hunting area in the process. The other man could stop this by throwing his opponent to the ground as hard as he could. Squanto quickly gathered 10 of the bravest warriors from the Wampanoag tribe to face Standish and his pilgrims hardened by plague, famine, and a lack of servants.
Constance, Mercy, Chastity, Prudence, Virtue, Patience, and Grace were excluded from participating. After much debate they were permitted to watch from the sidelines, and waived bundles of prairie grass in support of the men. This proved to be quite a distraction for their worthy opponents, and thus the girls were invited to participate in each subsequent contest.
It was the biggest thing to happen to Plymouth Rock since the Landing. The men could talk of little else, while the women talked of everything but. The men were riveted once the contest began and everyone gathered on one side to watch. Even though the contest only took an hour and a half, nothing else was accomplished for the rest of the day, unless you count drinking Meade. When their side finally won, all the men realized that their undivided attention and unsolicited opinions had played a crucial role in the outcome of this contest. They vowed never to tamper with this combination and thus it was passed down from father to son to this very day.
Meanwhile, back at P-Rock, Mrs. Bradford & Mrs. Standish were busy comparing who had the finest linens, best candlesticks, and where they might find more scented lye soap. Mrs. Bradford was trying hard to avoid her mother-in-law, who had (somehow!) survived the scurvy outbreak. She was loudly hinting that she might move to Massachusetts in the spring. After all, someone had to remember the crunchy onion stuff. Sadly, it was never to be. The poor lady returned from Cromwell’s later that day and collapsed by the hearth from all her shopping. She had been trampled by the mob whilst trying to take advantage of a 50% off sale on musket cleaner. This lead to the expression shop-till-you-drop. The rift between cultures widened even more the next year, when Mrs. Squanto showed up at the Bradfords the following year with a squash. And that, boys and girls, is the REAL story of the first Thanksgiving.
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