The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

Well, here comes another holiday. That means an “Under The Wire” dedicated to the event.

Not every holiday warrants a column as loyal readers have probably figured out now after 30 some years of doing this. Halloween doesn’t deserve a column as far as I am concerned. Never liked it as a kid. Probably because wearing weird clothes, a costume to most, complete with a mask I couldn’t see out of and hardly breath through, while walking down the barrow pit of our county road in the dark in late October with a bunch of other kids I wasn’t even sure I knew because of their weird clothes and masks to go beg for candy from the neighbors, just wasn’t my idea of fun.

Christmas columns are a no brainer. Of course lots of us are going to make a big deal over Nativity scenes and appropriate celebrations. Department stores are going to push it because of the fact Santa brings us all presents he has purchased at their stores. Would love to see his Mastercard bill.

Now, along comes Thanksgiving, our National celebration of over-eating and family getting together to share the things and people they are thankful for. Next to Christmas, this one is my favorite, with one kind of small objection to it all.

While the event is represented by images of Pilgrims dressed a bit odd for chopping down trees to build log cabins and pictures of Cornucopias, large, black gun powder horns, they look like to me, overflowing with vegetables, fruits and other edibles. Guess the Pilgrims had run out of powder so one genius decided “let’s just fill our powder horns with vegetables, we can’t shoot any game but we can throw broccoli at them.”

My big problem with this Holiday is it’s prevalent symbol, a turkey. Really? If they were going to choose a bird to represent their first year on the new continent, why did they choose a turkey? There had to be beautiful Eagles soaring overhead. Why not an exquisite rooster pheasant, a site that still brings chills of excitement to any who see them. Yea, I know it took the Chinese stashing the ring neck pheasant into a ship load of television sets many decades later to get them here but maybe we had our own before that happened. Go down the bird list. There were graceful swans, geese, all sorts of ducks but instead they choose a turkey to eat and turn into an eternal symbol of that first feast.

Personally, I always lobby for a big Prime Rib to adorn our table along with the mandatory turkey. Eat a little turkey that day, turkey sandwiches for weeks later.

All this said, I do now know how this large, not very smart bird became the guest of honor at the Native American/Pilgrim get together. Turkeys were the only thing they could bag by throwing the broccoli in their otherwise empty powder horns!