I told him what happened that day, and explained that those attacks on America were the reason we have troops at war overseas.
I reviewed with him briefly World War II and how we, as a country, had gone in with all we could muster and helped both the Japanese and the Germans rebuild their countries.
I made sure he understood that this was not typical historically. The normal thing to do was for the victor to take over the lands and possessions of the losers and either enslave or wipe out those who survived the battles of the war.
As we approach our national day of Thanksgiving and then the Christmas holiday season, perhaps some explanation of the reasons behind these holidays is in order.
The first Thanksgiving is usually thought of as that one held in 1621 at Plymouth in what is now Massachusetts.
Others cite proof of an earlier start, as early as 1565 at what is now St. Augustine, Florida. The colonists brought with them a tradition of a post-harvest feast of thanksgiving from Europe.
It was the late 1660s before it became an annual tradition. It was not until Dec. 26, 1941, that Thanksgiving became an official holiday with an official date, that being the fourth (not the last) Thursday of November.
The day of Thanksgiving has a rich heritage for us in this land. The Plymouth colony did not have half enough food to feed themselves.
The Native American Wampanoag people showed them how to fish and farm, providing them with corn seed. That help meant that most of the colonists survived the first winter.
Those colonists came here seeking a place of freedom. That they came ill-equipped to grow their own food in a virgin land and yet survived adds to the fervor with which the first Thanksgiving was celebrated.
It would be much the same today. Move a large group of people to a virgin land and leave them cut off from the rest of the world.
If you don’t figure out how to grow food, you die. No television cameras recording your exploits. No paramedics on a helicopter.
If you get sick or hurt, you may die. These early settlers were no strangers to death by starvation and disease. Illness and famine had been a part of Europe, from whence they came.
They came to make for themselves a place to live where they could worship as directed by their conscience.
They were not explorers or conquerors. For over 300 years people came here, to the land of promise. The children were taught to appreciate what was available here; the freedoms and opportunity missing in their homelands.
More often than not, that appreciation was given to the Almighty for allowing them the means to come to a place of freedom and opportunity.
There have been growing pains. Once we became an industrialized society, it became a challenge for newcomers to fit in.
There was a time when help-wanted signs would read, “Irish need not apply.” This was in the era of the great Irish potato famine, where a plant disease had made death by starvation commonplace in Ireland.
The Irish who could moved here. My Dad told of his parents, both fluent in their native Danish language, always speaking English in the home “so the children would know the language of the land.”
It has been the hope of each immigrant parent that their children would be able to be accepted as a part of this wonderful, free society.
It has often been a rocky road for newcomers. My daughter Nikki put this all into perspective rather well using, of all things, penguins as the subject. (Read this at http://insanityofthealmostsane.blogspot.com/2011/09/penguin-ramblings.html)
Some would have us believe that America has fallen and deserves the scorn that some appear to have for us. I don’t believe that for a second.
Some within this country do not understand that one of the freedoms we enjoy here is the freedom to fail.
Those not understanding this have petitioned those who hand out government funds to do so in a manner that removes the freedom to fail.
There is a difference between seed money and welfare. Seed money to start farming or to start any other honest venture has been available in some form for generations.
One enduring problem that seems to get worse as time goes on is that there are areas where the third and fourth generations get by living off of welfare.
The natives of the land show you how to catch fish and how to use those fish as fertilizer to grow corn and give you the corn seed.
You starve because you are not responsible enough to take care of your corn and harvest it and secure it to feed yourself.
This is still the land of the free and the home of the brave. The land is not free from problems. Those of us who still see ourselves as free and brave have the responsibility to deal with those problems.
It is always easier to whine than to do that which a successful person or nation has done to become successful.
If a person can’t get a job because he or she can’t read, it may be too late to go back and slap the parents and grandparents for not seeing that homework got done.
But it is not too late to find a free adult education class and learn what is needed to be able to get a job. This sort of thing is not welfare. It is an investment that will turn a chronically unemployed person into a taxpayer.
The opportunity for freedom, both religious and financial, is still here. In 1621, it required that one get out of bed and go to work.
Some 390 years later, it’s still the same formula. It remains a miracle that these freedoms still exist. As we gather around the Thanksgiving table this year, thank God not only for the food, but for the freedom.
No, do better than that. Express that thanks every day. And call your children and grandchildren in to you, one at a time, and see that they understand why we are a thankful, grateful people. FG
Brad Nelson
Tales of a Hay Hauler
bnelson@smwireless.net
