I have been reflecting on how Thanksgiving and the United States has changed since I was a youngster back in the the 60's and 70's, and while much has remained the same, much has also changed. Those things that have remained the same, such as gathering with our family to cook the turkey and all of the side dishes, bake pies and cookies with the kids, and watch football or listen to music, are all still intact. We look at Thanksgiving not just as a holiday to be together with friends and family though. Thanksgiving is a religious or spiritual holiday. Thanksgiving is the day to give thanks to God for all of the blessings he has given us as a family, a nation, and as individuals over the past 365 days.
For too many though, the holiday has become not about giving thanks to God, but as just another day off of work/school, an excuse for the guys to drink to excess and watch football, and for the ladies to go to the "running of the bulls" at malls and shopping centers across the country for all of the "Black Friday" deals (which started at 6PM Thursday this year). We now usher in the "Xmas" shopping season with "doorbuster" sales that incite the absolute worst behavior in human beings to "celebrate" the birth of the man Jesus, who urges us all to treat others as we wish to be treated. I guess he never foresaw XBox Ones, Tickle Me Elmo, and other products that cause normally rational human beings to shove, hit, trample, and mace others to get whatever is deemed the holy grail of gifts this season.
So it is with that in mind that I was fortunate enough to come across the following story in an e-mail of what Thanksgiving may look like in the not-to-distant politically correct, socialist country called the United States of America.
Thanks to Wes for the timely e-mail!
Thanksgiving... 2022
"Winston, come into the dining room, it's time to eat," Julia yelled to her husband.
"In a minute, honey, it's a tie score," he answered.
Actually Winston wasn't very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington. Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its "unseemly violence" and the "bad" example it sets for the rest of the world", Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn't nearly as exciting.
And ever since the government officially changed the name of "Thanksgiving Day" to "A National Day of Atonement" in 2020, to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims' historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.
Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold. Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats - which were monitored and controlled by the electric company - be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.
Still, it was good getting together with family. Or at least most of the family.
Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of life-saving medical treatment. He had had many heated conversations with the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into the government health care program. And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort. "The RHC's resources are limited," explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone. "Your mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled. I'm sorry for your loss."
Ed couldn't make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines - for everyone but government officials. The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed didn't want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and there.
Thankfully, Winston's brother, John, and his wife were flying in.
Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion. No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids. Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added "inconvenience" was an "absolute necessity" in order to stay "one step ahead of the terrorists."
The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of six progressives and three conservatives to leave the law intact. "A living Constitution is extremely flexible", said the Court's eldest member, Elena Kagan. "Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should learn from their example," she added.
Winston's thoughts turned to his own children. He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him. Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner. Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford. She whined for a week, but got over it.
The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to "spur economic growth." This time, they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.
Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement.
At least, he had his memories. He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life "fair for everyone" realized their full potential.
Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn't happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to them. He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2009, when all the real nonsense began.
"Maybe we wouldn't be where we are today if we'd just said 'enough is enough' when we had the chance," he thought.
Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.
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