Happy Thanksgiving!

[Mike Phillips]

Happy Thanksgiving!



To all our forum members and even all you lurkers!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The below is taken from Wikipedia...

In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly, but not universally, traced to a sparsely documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts.

The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.

According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden.

Now called Oktober Feesten, Leiden's autumn thanksgiving celebration in 1617 was the occasion for sectarian disturbance that appears to have accelerated the pilgrims plans to emigrate to America. In later years, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned the colony's thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1622. The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.

Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress,each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes.

As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".

In modern times the President of the United States, in addition to issuing a proclamation, will "pardon" a turkey, which spares the bird's life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.

At our house besides giving thanks in prayer before we enjoy the Thanksgiving dinner we have another tradition where we go around the table and each person shared something in their life that they are very thankful for. Sometimes it's a person, like a husband or a wife. Sometimes its good health. Sometimes its being thankful for a job and sometimes it's simply for the blessings from God throughout the past year or over a person's lifetime.

It's a way of sharing with family things, events or people that you are thankful for and also vocal remembrance from yourself to yourself for what's important to you in your life.

Often times as I walk through the warehouse my co-workers will say,

How's it going?


I always answer one of two ways...

Top of the world - which is a reference to a line from James Cagney in the movie White Heat. And has a meaning to me that most people don't connect especially if they've never seen the end of the movie.

Or

Can't complain - Which is a line from a song from John Mayall and in the song he has these lyrics...

The blue text towards the end are the pertinent part I want to bring attention too...

The taxman came knockin' on my door,
I said "I already gave", he said he wanted some more
Then my house burned down on a hot summer day,
When I saw the smoke clear, didn't know what to say,
But come what may, I guess I'll be ok,
I can't complain

Got me a broke leg, actin' like a fool,
Jumped off my balcony and missed the pool
Now my doctor's tellin' me that I'm eatin' too much fat
Says "high cholesterol just ain't where it's at"
They ask me any day, tell you what I say
I can't complain

My car's a lemom now, it's just broken down,
For the hundreth time, I can't get across town
I never got invited to the Grammy show,
If my luck ever changes, I really don't know
Ask me any day, tell you what I say,
I can't complain

It's how you look at it, your attitude
You can't get through life without some gratitude
You can always make a list of what's going wrong,
But your list of blessings will be twice as long

I can't complain

You can always dwell on what's going wrong and even make a list but if you take a moment to think about what's most important... at least for most of us our list of blessings will be twice as long as our list of things that are going wrong.

So if you ask me how I'm doing...

I can't complain....


Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

p.s.


Check out the song here...

[ViperGuy21]

Thanks Mike! Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

[Paul A.]

Thank you, Mike. A wonderful perspective shared with us.

[Setec Astronomy]

Thanks Mike, Happy Thanksgiving to you to and congratulations on your new show.

I have a friend who frequently says when asked how he's doing "I can't complain..." sometimes followed by "...because nobody listens anyway!" or something in that vein, LOL!

[WAXOFF]

Same to you and all the hard workers at Autogeek.

[Mike lambert]

Every time I go in my shop and I see what I get to work on , I am thankful I got to meet both you and Rod Kraft!
Happy thanksgiving Mike!

[van185]

Happy Thanksgiving Mike!

[Pats300zx]

Happy Thanksgiving Mike !!!

[GS2011]

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Craig Parker]

That's cool Mike, hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, thanks for sharing