November Thoughts

It must be the impending Thanksgiving holiday, but for some reason I’ve been thinking about Pilgrims lately.

Did you know that the whole story about Miles Standish and John Alden competing over Priscilla Mullins was taken from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and probably isn’t true? I swear I learned about this in third grade or so, as a true story from the life of the Pilgrims. I bet a lot of other stuff I learned was a big lie, too.

Longfellow’s poetry is part of a good well rounded liberal arts education, of course, although the damn thing was written in obscure meter and vocabulary and is damn near unreadable. It probably cost thousands of dollars for me to remember it, misfile it in my memory, and have no use for it now.

"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody."

Ah, THAT was money well spent.

I also just recently figured out that the Pilgrims and the Puritans were separate groups. There was apparently a HUGE religious divide, although they’re way to boring to figure out. I’m sure it was enormously important at the time.

Whatever.

When one of the most exciting groups in a story are the Calvinists, you’re not in for a rip-roaring good time.

I have some serious doubts about the big hats with the buckles, and they probably didn’t have pies. In fact, it was supposed to be a day of fasting and prayer, which in typical American fashion we have turned into a day of overeating and football.

Most of my mental images of pilgrims look like this...

...so it looks like all of grammar school was a waste of time.

Sorry, Mom.

Pilgrim Dolls from Alden Kindred of America's, Aunt Polly's Gift Shop