Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, November 29, 1923.

The Fresno Bee, California, November 29, 1923.

It was Thanksgiving Day for 1923, Calvin Coolidge having fixed the very late date for this year on November 5.

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

The American people, from their earliest days, have observed the wise custom of acknowledging each year the bounty with which divine Providence has favored them. In the beginnings, this acknowledgment was a voluntary return of thanks by the community for the fruitfulness of the harvest. Though our mode of life has greatly changed, this custom has always survived. It has made thanksgiving day not only one of the oldest but one of the most characteristic observances of our country. On that day, in home and church, in family and in public gatherings, the whole nation has for generations paid the tribute due from grateful hearts for blessings bestowed.

To center our thought in this way upon the favor which we have been shown has been altogether wise and desirable. It has given opportunity justly to balance the good and the evil which we have experienced. In that we have never failed to find reasons for being grateful to God for a generous preponderance of the good. Even in the least propitious times, a broad contemplation of our whole position has never failed to disclose overwhelming reasons for thankfulness. Thus viewing our situation, we have found warrant for a more hopeful and confident attitude toward the future.

In this current year, we now approach the time which has been accepted by custom as most fitting for the calm survey of our estate and the return of thanks. We shall the more keenly realize our good fortune, if we will, in deep sincerity, give to it due thought, and more especially, if we will compare it with that of any other community in the world.

The year has brought to our people two tragic experiences which have deeply affected them. One was the death of our beloved President Harding, which has been mourned wherever there is a realization of the worth of high ideals, noble purpose and unselfish service carried even to the end of supreme sacrifice. His loss recalled the nation to a less captious and more charitable attitude. It sobered the whole thought of the country. A little later came the unparalleled disaster to the friendly people of Japan. This called forth from the people of the United States a demonstration of deep and humane feeling. It was wrought into the substance of good works. It created new evidences of our international friendship, which is a guarantee of world peace. It replenished the charitable impulse of the country.

By experiences such as these, men and nations are tested and refined. We have been blessed with much of material prosperity. We shall be better able to appreciate it if we remember the privations others have suffered, and we shall be the more worthy of it if we use it for their relief. We will do well then to render thanks for the good that has come to us, and show by our actions that we have become stronger, wiser, and truer by the chastenings which have been imposed upon us. We will thus prepare ourselves for the part we must take in a world which forever needs the full measure of service. We have been a most favored people. We ought to be a most generous people. We have been a most blessed people. We ought to be a most thankful people.

Wherefore, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, do hereby fix and designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November, as Thanksgiving Day, and recommend its general observance throughout the land. It is urged that the people, gathering in their homes and their usual places of worship, give expression to their gratitude for the benefits and blessings that a gracious Providence has bestowed upon them, and seek the guidance of Almighty God, that they may deserve a continuance of His favor.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this 5th day of November, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States, the One Hundred and Forty-eighth.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

By the President:

CHARLES E. HUGHES, Secretary of State.


The Casper paper apparently gave its staff the day off, but the Saratoga one did not, and also informed its readers that childhood vaccinations for smallpox were now mandatory.

Wilhelm Marx was chosen as the new Chancellor of Germany.  He's serve twice in the 1920s.

He was charged with criminal activity in the early 30s by the Nazi regime for his leadership of the People's Association for Catholic Germany (Volksverein für das katholische Deutschland) but the charge against him was dropped in 1935.  He died in 1946.  The Catholic association he headed, which had dated back to the 1890s, was recreated as the Volksverein Mönchengladbach after World War Two.

Saturday, November 25, 2023

Thursday, November 25, 1943. Thanksgiving

It was Thanksgiving Day in the United States.  The proclamation for the day had been issued on November 11, before President Roosevelt left for Cairo.

Proclamation 2600—Thanksgiving Day, 1943

November 11, 1943

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

God’s help to us has been great in this year of march towards world-wide liberty. In brotherhood with warriors of other United Nations our gallant men have won victories, have freed our homes from fear, have made tyranny tremble, and have laid the foundation for freedom of life in a world which will be free.

Our forges and hearths and mills have wrought well; and our weapons have not failed. Our farmers, victory gardeners, and crop volunteers have gathered and stored a heavy harvest in the barns and bins and cellars. Our total food production for the year is the greatest in the annals of our country.

For all these things we are devoutly thankful, knowing also that so great mercies exact from us the greatest measure of sacrifice and service.

Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, November 25, 1943, as a day for expressing our thanks to God for His blessings. November having been set aside as "Food Fights for Freedom" month, it is fitting that Thanksgiving Day be made the culmination of the observance of the month by a high resolve on the part of all to produce and save food and to "share and play square" with food.

May we on Thanksgiving Day and on every day express our gratitude and zealously devote ourselves to our duties as individuals and as a nation. May each of us dedicate his utmost efforts to speeding the victory which will bring new opportunities for peace and brotherhood among men.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this 11th day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-eighth.

Signature of Franklin D. Roosevelt

My father and his family no doubt enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving meal.  My father and his siblings would have been on the Thanksgiving holiday.

In Cairo, the conference regarding the Far East concluded. 

The Battle of Cape St. George was fought between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy between Buka and New Ireland in the Solomons.  The battle ensured as part of a Japanese effort to reinforce Buka whiel also removing air technicians.  Three of the five Japanese ships, the Ōnami, the Makinami, and the Yūgiri, were sunk, bringing nighttime resupply efforts by the Japanese to an end.


The Australian Army prevailed over the Japanese at the Battle of Sattelberg.

Bombers of the US 14th Air Force hit Formosa (Taiwan) for the first time in a raid on the airbase at Shinchiku. Forty-two Japanese aircraft were destroyed.  Formosa had been part of the Japanese Empire since 1895.

RAF Bomber Command Chief Sir Arthur Harris declared that Berlin would be bombed "until the heart of Nazi Germany ceases to beat."

The I-9 was sunk by the USS Radford off of Makin Island. The U-600 and &-849 were sunk in the Atlantic.

Thursday, November 23, 2023

The First (North American) Thanksgiving. (With a shout out to Craig Beard, Canadian historian).

1621,with the Pilgrims and local Natives, right?

Not hardly, buckwheat.

1578 with Marin Frobisher and his men holding a Thanksgiving feast, somewhere in North America, thankful for not dying crossing the Atlantic.  It might have been in Newfoundland, or maybe on the Canadian Atlantic Arctic, or maybe somewhere else on the Canadian Atlantic coast.


Frobisher was an explorer and privateer and, interestingly enough, died in the manner depicted as a danger in Master and Commander. I.e, he was shot in an engagement with the Spanish and the surgeon extracted the ball, but not the patching, which infected.


Doesn't county? Well, some 39 years later, Samuel de Champlain held one in Quebec with the Québécois, probably not called that yet, and the Mi'kmaq. Cranberries were served.  I don't know about turkey, but could be.  Quebec is within the historic range of turkeys.

All of the above courtesy of Craig Beard.


But wait, Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés had a Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated on September 8, 1565 upon his landing in Florida.  That beats out Frobisher by over a decade.  And if that doesn't count, coming after Frobisher, but before Champlain, was Juan de Oñate in 1598, who led an expedition of 500 people, and 7,000 head of livestock through the harsh Chihuahua to a location that is now El Paso and, on April 30, 1598 dedicated a day of Thanksgiving.

What does all this tell us?  Well, what we've noted before. Thanksgivings are a common thing in Christian cultures.  The "first" Thanksgiving really wasn't, and it wasn't particularly unique.

Probably a fairly realistic idea of "First Thanksgiving" fare.

Except a lot fancier.

Apple Cider Braised Deer Roast with Roasted Butternut Squash and Rice

Blog Mirror: American Thanksgiving as a republican meal, a repudiation of the high cuisine of monarchies

American Thanksgiving as a republican meal, a repudiation of the high cuisine of monarchies

Monday, February 13, 2023

A comment about Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hog Leg. Sunday games, rural activities, and gatherings.

Soccer, Scotland, 1830s.
Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hog Leg: Nothing says America like shooting guns and watching the Super Bowl. A nice sunny afternoon was the perfect time to try out my newly borrowe...

This is interesting.

The Super Bowl used to be a bigger deal in this house than it now is. Seems like a lot of things once were.

I’m not a football fan at all, and I didn't really start watching the Super Bowl until my wife and I were married.  She is a football fan and will watch the season, and always watches the Super Bowl.  

When we were first married, there were Super Bowl parties.  We didn't have kids at first, and my wife's brothers were young at the time.  Later, however, it carried on until the kids were teens.  Then something changed, including the giving up of the farm (the farm, not the ranch), longer travel distances, and some residential changes at the ranch.  Ultimately, the parties just sort of stopped, although I'm sure my two brothers-in-law, who live in houses at the ranch yard, still observe a party, and my father and mother-in-law, who live a few miles away, likely travel to that.

Much lower key than it used to be.  No big gatherings like there once were.

Back in the day, we had a couple of them at our house.

Basically, the dining fare was always simple. Sandwiches bought at one of the local grocery stores, chips and beer.  Typical football stuff.

At some parties at the farm, there were bowling pin shooting matches. For those not familiar with them, people shot bowling pins from some distance with pistols.  It was fun.  Frankly, I don't think a lot of people are all that interested in the Super Bowl to start with, and at least at the Super Bowl parties with bowling pin matches people went out to the match, and it ran into the game, which says something.

The other day also, I wrote on community.

I note this because, at one time, Schuetzen matches were big deals in German American communities.  And while they involved rifles, and indeed very specialized rifles, they were also big community events.

And such things aren't unique to just those mentioned.  In parts of the country, men participating in "turkey shoots" were pretty common.  

Of course, shooting clubs and matches still exist nearly everywhere, and lots of men, and women, participate in matches.  

Less common, however, are the rural informal matches.

All sorts of rural activities were once associated with holidays, and events.  I guess that the Super Bowl is some sort of large-scale informal civil holiday, even though of course it always occurs on a Sunday.  Indeed, the playing of the game on a Sunday is curious.  I put a little (very little) time looking into that, and found this CBS Sports comment on it, which it must be first noted explained that football really started being popular in the 1920s.

Sunday was a free day during a decade where it was common to work on Saturdays, so the APFA played most of their games on that day. Fast forward 30 years to the advent of television networks, who were desperately looking for programming on Sundays in the 1950s.

That makes some sense to me, as I still work on Saturdays.

I'd note, however, that is this makes sense, it doesn't quite explain why baseball games occur all throughout the week, and I think there are Monday night professional football games as well, albeit televised ones.

I wonder, however, if it has deeper roots than that. American football is the successor to Rugby, and Rugby and Soccer were hugely popular in the United Kingdom.  Prior to major league fun sucker Oliver Cromwell taking over the English government, in the United Kingdom, Sunday had been a day for church and then games.

This went back to Medieval times, before the Reformation.  People worked, and worked hard, six days out of seven, but on the seventh, they rested. And resting meant going to Mass, and then having fun, and fun often meant games and beer, as well as other activities.  In spite of their best efforts, major Protestant reformers weren't really able to make a dent in village observance of tradition until Cromwell came in and really started ruining things.  To Calvinist of the day like Cromwell, Sunday was a day for church and nothing else, although contrary to what some may suspect they were not opposed to alcohol.  Cromwell's Puritan government banned sports.

It's no wonder he was posthumously beheaded.

Cromwell and his ilk did a lot of damage to the Christian religion in the Untied Kingdom, and if you really want to track the decline in religious observance in the UK to something, you can lay it somewhat at the bottom of his severed head.  Indeed, while hardly noted, what we're seeing going on today, in some ways, is the final stages of the Reformation playing out, and playing out badly.

Anyhow, after Cromwell was gone and the Crown restored, games came back, and they came back on Sunday.  Not just proto-football, but all sorts of games.  And games became hugely associated with certain religious holidays in the United Kingdom.  The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, is one such example, as is New Years, the latter of which is a religious holiday in and of itself.

I suspect, however, that this had a lasting influence.  I don't know for sure, but I think football is on Sunday as Sunday was the day of rest, and watching the village football game and having a tankard of ale was all part of that, after church.  I also suspect that this is the reason that some American holidays are associated with football, such as Thanksgiving, which had its origin as a religious holiday, and New Years, which as noted also is.

Now, of course, with the corrupting influence of money, it's become nearly a religion to some people in and of itself.  People who dare not miss a single football game never step foot in a church.

Also lost, however, is the remaining communal part of that.  Watching a game played that's actually local, rather than corporate national, to a large extent.  And one free of advertising.  Indeed, the Super Bowl has become the number one premiere venue for innovative advertising, some of which isn't bad.

Anyhow, maybe the Super Bowl Party, in some form if properly done, is a step back in time to when the game was more a vehicle than an end in and of itself, and when it wasn't such a show that a big freakish half-time performance was expected.

We can hope so.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Friday, December 1, 1922. Environment.

Protesters took advantage of the Thanksgiving Holiday to picket the White House regarding those held under sedition charges.




At the Conference of Lausanne, the Turks informed European delegates that Greeks remaining in Eastern Thrace had two weeks to leave.  They numbered 1,000,000.

Monica Cobb appeared at the Birmingham Assizes, acting in the role of a prosecutor.  It was the first appearance by a woman solicitor in court in the United Kingdom. The defendant was charged with bigamy.

A safety parade took place in Washington, D.C., viewed by President Harding.
 


















Environment, a silet move about the trials of a female ex con, was released:



Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Thursday, November 30, 1922. Thanksgiving Day turkeys and speeches, Ominous rallies in Germany, Living by the sword in Ireland, Strange Imperial Chinese weddings.

Well, at least I didn't miss this one.

This day was Thanksgiving Day in 1922.


Unlike the entry for 1942, I can't give any personal recollections for my parents, or speculations on what they did, as they weren't born yet.

President Harding had earlier made a proclamation in advance of and in recognition of the day.

THANKSGIVING - 1922 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - A PROCLAMATION 

In the beginnings of our country the custom was established by the devout fathers of observing annually a day of Thanksgiving for the bounties and protection which Divine Providence had extended throughout the year. It has come to be perhaps the most characteristic of our national observances, and as the season approaches for its annual recurrence, it is fitting formally to direct attention to this ancient institution of our people and to call upon them again to unite in its appropriate celebration. 

The year which now approaches its end has been marked, in the experience of our nation, by a complexity of trials and of triumphs, of difficulties and of achievements, which we must regard as our inevitable portion in such an epoch as that through which all mankind is moving. As we survey the experience of the passing twelve-month we shall find that our estate presents very much to justify a nationwide and most sincere testimony of gratitude for the bounty which has been bestowed upon us. Though we have lived in the shadow of the hard consequences of great conflict, our country has been at peace and has been able to contribute toward the maintenance and perpetuation of peace in the world. We have seen the race of mankind make gratifying progress on the way to permanent peace, toward order and restored confidence in its high destiny. For the Divine guidance which has enabled us, in growing fraternity with other peoples, to attain so much of progress; for the bounteous yield which has come to us from the resources of our soil and our industry, we owe our tribute of gratitude, and with it our acknowledgment of the duty and obligation to our own people and to the unfortunate, the suffering, the distracted of other lands. Let us in all humility acknowledge how great is our debt to the Providence which has generously dealt with us, and give devout assurance of unselfish purpose to play a helpful and ennobling part in human advancement. It is much to be desired that in rendering homage for the blessings which have come to us, we should earnestly testify our continued and increasing aim to make our own great fortune a means of helping and serving, as best we can, the cause of all humanity. Now, therefore, I, Warren G. Harding, President of the United States of America, do designate Thursday, the thirtieth day of November, as a day of Thanksgiving, supplication and devotion. I recommend that the people gather at their family altars and in their houses of worship to render thanks to God for the bounties they have enjoyed and to petition that these may be continued in the year before us. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington this second day of November, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-seventh.

Liam Lynch, the Chief of Staff for the Irish Republican Army, issued orders to the IRA authorizing the assassination of Irish Free State officials in retaliation for the execution of those caught with handguns contrary to an Irish emergency law earlier in the week. The order further provided: 

All members of the Provisional 'Parliament' who were present and voted for the Murder Bill will be shot at sight. Houses of members... who are known to support Murder Bill will be destroyed. Free State army officers who approve of Murder Bill will be shot at sight; also all ex-British army officers and men who joined the Free State army since 6 December 1921.

Lynch was shot by Free State troops himself on December 6, 1923.

On the same day, oddly enough, the British announced the withdrawal of its remaining troops from Ireland, starting on December 12 and to be completed by January 5.  The UK also closed its post offices in China, something that had been operating for fifty years.

A riot over rationing in Mexico resulted in the deaths of seventeen people in clashes with police in Mexico City.

Aisin-Gioro Puyi (溥儀) age 17, the former Emperor of China, and future Emperor of collaborationist Manchucko, married Gobulo Wanrong (郭布羅·婉容), age 16, in an elaborate ceremony in the Forbidden City.

Wanrong.

In spite of the termination of the monarchy, some of its traditions were still strong, and Puyi had been ordered to marry by the Dowager Empress.  Wanrong was chosen from a collection of photographs he was given and was in fact his second choice after being informed that his first choice was suitable only to be a concubine.  A marriage to the first choice, Erdet Wenxiu 額爾德特·文繡, was performed later that night in an example of hopeless oddity.

Wenxiu.

The Chinese royal family was quite frankly extraordinarily weird in many ways by this time, and its maintenance after its fall preserved its oddities.  The marriages may not have been consummated, but if they were they were certainly not happy in numerous ways.  Puyi himself noted that they were strained as the two women were effectively slaves, rather than real spouses.  There is some fairly serious speculation that Puyi was homosexual, in spite of having at least one other concubine.

Wanrong smoking a cigarette in the 1930s.

Wanrong lived a miserable life in spite of being the claimant to the title of Empress.  As Empress of Manchuko she entered into affairs and became pregnant by a court chauffeur.  The baby was murdered after birth.  She would have divorced Puyi, but the Japanese precluded it. She was taken prisoner towards the end of the Second World War by the Red Chinese. She died in their captivity at age 39 in June, 1945.

Not too surprisingly, Wenxiu was also unhappy in her role as a second class wife and had a troubled relationship with Wanrong and Piyu.  She divorced him in 1931 and latter married Major Liu Zhendong in 1947. He later became a car dealership and then the two of them lived in poverty following the Red Chinese victory in the Chinese Civil War. She died in 1953.

Yuling.

As if this isn't odd enough, and in spite of the questions this raises, Puyi would take two more consorts over time, Tatara Yuling 他他拉·玉齡 and Li Yuqin.  Puyi grew to be very fond of Yuling, who died undergoing medical treatment in 1942 at age 22. There are some suspicions regarding her death as her physician was Japanese and she was known to harbor negative thoughts about the Japanese.  Puyi kept a picture of her with him until his death.  Yuling was half Korean.

Yuquin married Puyi in 1943 and was with Empress Wanrong when she attempted to flee at teh endo fthe Second World War.  She was released from capitivy in 1946 and became a textile factory employee and a library employee.  She sought a divorce from Puyi in 1955 but oddly was ordered to reconcile with him by the Red Chinese government.  They none the less divorced in 1958 and she latter married technician Huang Yugeng (黃毓庚). She died in 2001 in Changchun.

Puyi lived until 1967, dying in Red China. The Soviets saved his life by refusing to extradite him to the Republic of China, which viewed him as a traitor.

50,000 gathered to hear Hitler speak in Munich.

Saturday, November 26, 2022

Thursday, November 26, 1942. Casablanca premiers, Battle of Brisbane

When I first posted this (written yesterday, went up early this morning) I failed to appreciate that this was Thanksgiving Day for 1942.

Now, of course, most of the day is gone.

Usually when something like this comes up, I ponder on what that must have meant for my family at the time, so I've added that below.



The legendary film Casablanca, truly one of the best movies ever filmed, premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York in advance of its general release.

The movie is a fantastic film that holds up today.  Amazingly, the film as we know it barely came together, with casting changes and the like.  Paul Henreid proved aloof during the film, regarding the other actors as lessors, and the film was overall one that shouldn't have worked out as well as it truly did.

It's one of my favorite films.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 261942  Lusk announces they will forgo outdoor Christmas lights in accordance with a request from the War Production Board.  Attribution.  Wyoming History Calendar.

Riots broke out in Brisbane, Australia, between US servicemen and Australian servicemen.

This was not a minor incident, and one Australian serviceman was killed.  While generally Americans and Australians got along well, the disproportionately high pay of American serviceman was a source of problems all over the world, as merchants would cater to them, and it gave them an advantage with local women.  American soldiers were also freer with physical affection towards Australian women which offended Australians even though, ironically, the culture was much more libertine in the same arena behind closed doors.  

Additionally, Americans were dismissive of Australian soldiers in general, even though at the time they were all volunteer and had served in the war since 1939.  Australians were disdainful in turn of Americans who had, right up until about this time, a record of defeat.

The whole thing came to a head, resulting in two days of riots, the news of which was later suppressed.

President Franklin Roosevelt ordered gasoline rationing expanded to include the entire United States, effective December 1.

Speaking of a situation that involved the use of fuel, German 6th Army Commander Paulus, trapped at Stalingrad with his troops, wrote to his superior, Von Manstein, as follows:
For the past thirty-six hours I had received no orders or information from a higher level. In a few hours I was liable to be confronted with the following situation:
(a) Either I must remain in position on my western and northern fronts and very soon see the army front rolled up from behind (in which case I should formally be complying with the orders issued to me), or else

(b) I must make the only possible decision and turn with all my might on the enemy who was about to stab the army from behind. In the latter event, clearly, the eastern and northem fronts can no longer be held and it an only be a matter of breaking through to the south-west.

In case of (b) I should admittedly be doing justice to the situation but should also - for the second time - be guilty of disobeying an order.

(3) In this difficult situation I sent the Fuhrer a signal asking for freedom to take such a final decision if it should become necessary. I wanted to have this authority in order to guard against issuing the only possible order in that situation too late.
...
The airlift of the last three days has brought only a fraction of the calculated minimum requirement (600 tons = 300 Ju daily). In the very next few days supplies can lead to a crisis of the utmost gravity.

I still believe, however, that the army can hold out for a time. On the other hand - even if anything like a corridor is cut through to me - it is still not possible to tell whether the daily increasing weakness of the army, combined with the lack of accommodation and wood for constructional and heating purposes, will allow the area around Stalingrad to be held for any length of time.
While Paulus was asking for freedom of action, in Von Manstein's view the 6th Army lacked sufficient fuel to accomplish even minor movements, making a breakout by the 6th Army impossible.

As noted, this was Thanksgiving Day for 1942.

That is, US Thanksgiving Day.

Unlike Americans seem to think, most countries have a Thanksgiving of some sort.  It's very common for Christian countries. The U.S. can't really claim to have had "the first Thanksgiving", although we do.

However, not all countries have Thanksgiving on the same day by any means, so this was the holiday date for the U.S. in 1942.

On this day I know my father's family would have gathered for a Thanksgiving Dinner and it would have been the traditional type, turkey, etc.  It likely would have been, however, just my father's immediate family, but which I mean his parents and siblings.  No aunts or uncles lived nearby, they were living in Scotsbluff, and the grandparents were in Denver and Iowa respectively.

My father and his siblings would have been on a holiday break from school of course.  It was the first Thanksgiving of the war, but none of them were old enough to really be directly impacted by it yet.

Friday, November 25, 2022

Friday, November 25, 1922. Trotting Turkey


Country Gentleman came out with a Thanksgiving themed cover by illustrator Frederick Lowenheim.

In France, for St. Catherine's saint's day, the Catherinettes were out on the streets:




From John Blackwell's Twitter feed on the topic.

We noted this custom in 2020:

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.

We should also note that the plight of unmarried French women, and British ones as well (and probably German ones) had grown worse since 1914.  Due to the combat losses of young men in the Great War, their marriage prospects in an era when being an unmarried woman was somewhat grim, had greatly declined.  The youngest of these women had been 21 when the war ended, meaning that they were of marriageable age when most young men were fighting in the war.  As the war killed men in that demographic, it meant that some would never marry.  The war also meant that the surviving men had disproportionate options.

I'm sure there's a study of this somewhere, but it can't help be noted that it must have had long-lasting social impacts, and it probably also explains the significant number of "war brides" brought home from France by US servicemen after the war and occupation, as well as the same population brining home some German brides, and Russian brides.

The Italian Chamber of Deputies granted Mussolini full power over economic matters for a year.

On the Rebel Streets of Cork. . . 

Thursday, November 25, 2021

2021 Thanksgiving Reflections

So started off the Thanksgiving Day post last year.   The one that was entitled:


The comment about hubris is exactly correct.  Lots of bloggers put up posts like this, but frankly, there's no guaranty that anyone reads them or cares what you have to say about anything.

Moreover, this blog has zillions of posts as it often has more than one daily.  Indeed, that's the case for today.  There are a lot of Thanksgiving posts up for November 25, 2021.  People might wonder how much time is actually devoted to this blog (not much), as that would be misleading.  I should invest the small amount of time that goes into this into my slow moving novel, as it would read like War And Peace by now.

Well, anyhow, I wasn't particularly inclined to do this post this year, but given as there was one for the exceedingly odd year of 2020, and 2021 turned out to be a followup to it in oddness, I thought I would.  Which leads me to this.  

So much of what I wrote last year is even more the case now, that I was tempted to repeat a pile of it.  As repeating an essay in its entirety just burdens the reader, who probably doesn't read it, I'm going to forego it, however.



It was already the case, of course, that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 Presidential Election. It wasn't clear to me, however, the extent to which he'd go on to full deny losing it, and the extent to which a large section of the American public would buy into that.  Indeed, I was shocked just a month later when I heard for the first time somebody that I knew really well express the stolen election line.  Just a little over a month following Thanksgiving the former Presidents acolytes would attempt to put him back in power while a full scale attempt at a coup was being engaged in by the former President's political minions and operatives.  It failed, but only barely so.

Had it succeeded, I don't know that it would have succeeded, as odd as that may seem to state.  The majority of Americans, and it was a majority for a second time, who voted against Donald Trump would not have accepted him as President, and it would have gone right to the United States Supreme Court.  Predicting the Court is always difficult, but its first instinct is self-preservation, and I think it would have struck the effort down.

I also think there would have been violence, and I think that American democracy would have been damaged for generations.  I'm not entirely certain that had the Supreme Court not have declared Trump's election invalid, that there wouldn't have been a violent removal.  Advocates of force to cause something to occur frequently forget that the invitation of force often causes, in the human world, a greater, opposite, reaction.  

We can all be thankful, therefore, that this scenario did not play out.

We can be worried, however, about what may develop going forward.

The US is now already on the list of countries, according to an international group, that has been backsliding on democracy as there's a large section of the Republican Party that actually believes what Trump has been saying. Trump remains the head of the GOP and will run again, assuming that his advanced old age doesn't catch up with him first. And also assuming that due process of law does not.

That's an open question.  Mitch McConnell made it clear, during Trump's impeachment proceedings, that he was guilty of sedition.  He hasn't been charged.  It's not impossible that he shall not be.  If he is, and I'd lay even money on it, that will create its own firestorm, reminding us once again why it is important to strike while the iron is hot, something that our society, led by it is by the ancient, increasingly has a very difficult time doing.

It might prove to be necessary, however, for this to occur in order for the Republican Party to overcome the direction it seems to be headed.  Elements of it clearly want to.

Part of where it's headed in Wyoming is a dedicated effort to eject a Congressman whom conservatives loved prior to her deciding to stand her ground on principals.  It's shocking. We don't know where this is headed yet, but there's reason to believe it will fail, and a reckoning may be coming inside the state itself.

Anyhow, as Americans head towards their Thanksgiving Day meals, there's less reason to be calm about the fate of the nation than there has been at any point since the Civil War.  But there's some hope that we've started to very slowly round a corner.

And that's not all.  Last year at this time COVID 19 vaccinations had not started.  Now over half the eligible population in the country has been vaccinated, and the vaccines now extend down to childhood ages.  There's real hope that the Pandemic may be beat, but there's still a bizarre politicization of the virus that continues to haunt the nation.  And that's certainly something to be thankful for.

As part of this, this past week a person I knew, but I can't really say that I was friends with, died of COVID 19.

I haven't asked the details, but I was shocked as I was aware that the person passing was younger than I.  I was somewhat surprised to learn that the person wasn't that much younger, 54 years of age, as I would have guessed it was a decade or so.

I didn't ask the details, but I know that the person was almost surely not vaccinated, and I know why.  That makes this a death that surely could have been avoided.

At one time I wondered, along with people like Fr. Dwight Longnecker, if the Pandemic would cause a big reassessment of some things.  I still wonder that, although I'm less hopeful about that than I had been.  Some reassessment is going on, however, as the press has been reporting that the country is in the midst of the Great Resignation, an event reflecting people walking off from their jobs, post COVID lockdowns, and refusing to return to them.  While people are worried about that, I'm hopeful, even though it's hoping against hope, that this reflects a reconsideration of the Industrial economy we've bought off on for so long, and maybe a bit of a wandering back to a Chestertonesque one.

Closer to home, I suppose, it's been a very odd year and perhaps one of turmoil.  As I've noted elsewhere, I never did stay at home during the pandemic, but I was often the only one at work.  As part of that, during part of that time frame my two college age kids were back home, confined to Zoom U.  This past semester that has not been true, so my wife and I, who went from empty nesters to full housers went back to empty nesters.  It was somewhat disorienting. 

Also disorienting was watching the law evolve during the time period. Zoom came in and like the detective in Brecht's Maßnehmen Gegen Die Macht, it's grown fat and won't leave.  Doing in person depositions now is almost a thing of the past, it seems, although some older lawyers, such as myself, are bucking the trend.  Some younger ones basically don't leave their houses anymore.  The legal world is in transition and, at age 58, I don't like that.

Something that I also don't really quite like is the realization that I'm past the point where there's any point in my pondering the judiciary, which I used to do.  Oddly, I saw a comment from a figure associated with the judicial appointments expressing concern the other day about the lack of applicants.  Part of that is that those like myself, of which there were quite a few, who had lots of experience in the civil law were basically not welcome as applicants, so we quit applying.  In the meantime it seems that most younger lawyers have decided to eschew the courtroom.  Indeed, I received comments from a lawyer I tried a case against about being baffled on being in the process as it just doesn't happen much.  It still happens for me, however, and more than once last year.  I'm feeling like Crazy Horse, in being an acknowledged anachronism, fighting on.

As that anachronism, this past year I've worked heavily and that keeps up.  This Fall has been the worst hunting season, a season I highly value, since I was a law student.  I just haven't been getting out, and keeping up at work is why, or so I believe.

This past year something that's been a shock to see is the friends of my children all getting married, which means that my children are of that age.  Indeed, they both have fairly long term girlfriends/boyfriends at this point, all of which causes some angst for a parent.  All I'm really concerned about, at the end of the day, is metaphysical final destinations, and I think it's easy to get diverted on that trip.  Life offers a lot of stopping off points and compromises, some of which can be hard to get back on the train from.

In the meantime, however, that train and the changes to the scenery it brings roll on, and that can be a shock for those watching the passengers.  2022, just coming up, promises big changes here in the smaller nest.

Well, perhaps it's time to set all these things aside.  We're a year past an insurrection, and there's some hope that we may be putting it behind us. We're well into a final cycle of vaccinations, and there's hope that the Pandemic may be starting to get behind us. And its clear we're rethinking a lot of things as a society.  

All of that is something to be thankful for.   And perhaps more pacific pastures are on the horizon, even if there are a lot of breaks to struggle through to get to them.



Blog Mirror: What Did the Pilgrims Eat at the First Thanksgiving?

What Did the Pilgrims Eat at the First Thanksgiving?

Some of the irritating town turkeys that live hereabouts.

If our current celebration is accurate, they ate giant turkeys, mashed potatoes, and yams covered with marshmallows. . . which you know can't be perfectly accurate.

As a contrarian, I've often maintained they ate salted cod. . . and I don't know that I am necessarily completely inaccurate, but as they were living in land with a low population density, unless they were inept or simply to scared to go beyond their villages, we all know that they likely were eating a fair amount of wild game.  Indeed, the current European American trend for veganism and vegetarianism is something that could only come about in an industrialized society that actually kills a lot of animals just getting the tofu to the fair trade store, but that's another story.

Anyhow, this interesting article maintains that they ate the follows:

What They (Likely) Did Have at the First Thanksgiving

Sounds likely, and pretty darned good too.

The article goes on to note:

What They (Definitely) Did Not Have at the First Thanksgiving

Frankly, I don't think turkey is actually impossible.  Wild turkeys lived in the area and wild turkey isn't much different from domestic turkey, except in plumpness. 

Something I was wholly unaware of was that there is actually a surviving letter about that meal.  It relates:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.

So, that tells us for sure that they ate fowl, by which I think they meant waterfowl, and deer.  Another surviving period letter, however, relates.

And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.

Hmmm. . . could have featured turkey and corn, which is what the author means by "Indian corn" (i.e., not wheat).

Why not potatoes?  Well, the Columbian exchange hadn't't gotten around to them yet, so they were unknown to the Mayflower colonists.  Later they'd start to spread, massively distrusted as a food at first.  Cranberries would make their appearance about fifty years later, which is really quite early.

For what it's worth, they probably boiled a lot of the food they ate as well, although roasting was a common cooking technique of the period. Frying, however, would have been much less common.

They would have had fresh vegetables, at that time of year, including staples like cabbage and beans.

You know, all in all it sounds like pretty good fare, and food you'd recognize as appropriate for this holiday, if not necessarily completely identical.

What'd they drink?  We apparently know less about that, but we do know that the Mayflower had contained a store of beer and that in fact the ship put in when it did as it had become exhausted.  But beer is a somewhat complicated thing to make and it would have been unlikely that they had grown the constituents to make any of it in 1621.  They may have fermented something by the fall, or not.  None of the stuff they had brought with them to plant works well in that context.  There are berries that are native to New England that can be fermented for wine, but if they did that, no record of it is left.  They may very well have just had cold water.


Blog Mirror: A Hundred Years Ago. 1921 Thanksgiving Menus

From the always excellent A Hundred Years Ago:

1921 Thanksgiving Menus

Note, the small servantless  house.  

I commented on that entry with this:
I’m struck by the “servantless” house comment. I wonder what percentage of homes actually had servants? Surely a small minority, but still its an interesting comment as the author expects that some of the readers will have them.
We don't have servants, rather obviously, and I don't know anyone who does.  I do know some people who have "cleaning ladies", which are women who will clean houses, but not a daily basis.

I know that my father's family didn't have domestics of any kind.  No doubt my grandmother had the laboring oar there, and likely my father's two sisters a bit after a certain age. But my mother's family did have them up until some point in the 1930s, when the Great Depression halted that and the female members of the household took over.  I also know that they were what my mother called "French", meaning Quebecois, which is interesting in that my mother was "Irish Canadian", which in her case really meant that she was mostly Irish, but also a little French (probably 1/4, if I recall correctly).  Irish Canadians mostly lived in the cities, as she did, and their position in Quebec's economic system, which was highly agrarian at the time, was different from that of the full Quebecois.  Having said that, almost all Quebecois near the cities were also somewhat Irish, as Irish orphans had been taken in right off the docks at one time through direct adoptions by the Catholic population.

The maids didn't live there, they came in, and I don't know how frequently.  They also didn't cook, that was my grandmother's job, and like my mother, she reportedly was not particularly good at it.

She wouldn't have cooked anything like this, of course.  American Thanksgiving is an American deal.

Blog Mirror: Could you do Thanksgiving like it's 1621? An Agrarian Thanksgiving

Could you do Thanksgiving like it's 1621? An Agrarian Thanksgiving

 - November 25, 2021

I wrote out a blog entry for Lex Anteinternet on what the first Thanksgiving Dinner in 1621 must have been like.

Pheasants.

It really surprised me, even though it shouldn't.  We modern Americans are so used to the "poverty of resources of our ancestors" story that, well, we believe it.  In reality, that first gathering in English North America to celebrate God's bounty and give thanks for it, no matter how imperfect the Church of England and Puritan celebrants, and the native ones as well, was a really bountiful feast.  I've joked in the past that it probably consisted of salt cod, but in fact it seems likely to have featured waterfowl, maybe turkey, deer, mussels and quite an abundance of other foods stuffs.

Unlike now, what it didn't feature was pie, probably, even though pies of all sorts were a feature of the English diet, although at this point I frankly wonder. What would have kept there from being pie would have been a lack of wheat, as that crop wouldn't have come around for at least a few years. And the lack of a grain crop meant that there wouldn't have been beer, if that's something your Thanksgiving usually features (mine does).  It's an open question if there would have been wine.  There would have been a lot of fresh vegetables, however, as well as fresh foul, venison and fresh fish.

It would have been a good meal, in some ways one we'd recognize, but also one in which we might note some things were missing.  No potatoes, for example.

This set me to wondering what a killetarian/agrarian like me might end up with if allowed to do a  Thanksgiving Dinner all of stuff I'd shot or gathered.  Could I do it?

Well, there'd be no mussels on my table, but most years there would be fare similar to what the first celebrants had.  There are wild turkeys in my region, although I failed to get one this year.  Events conspired against me and I didn't get a deer (at least yet) either.  But if I had a major dinner, and time, I think I could muster it.  It might be pheasant rather than turkey, or a wild turkey, which is really no different in taste, only in bulk, from the domestic ones.

The challenge, however, would be vegetables, depending upon how feral I'd take this endeavor.  If I went full hunter/gatherer, here I'd really be in trouble.  I frankly know next to nothing about edible wild plants.

Now, starting off, I'd note that in my region, like the rest of the globe, a vegetarian would have starved to death in a few days prior to production agriculture.  It's not only an unnatural diet, but it's impossible up until that time.  Indeed, one of the ironies of agriculture has been the introduction of unnatural diets.  When you read, for example, of the Irish poor living on potatoes and oatmeal, while that's not what their Celtic ancestors had eaten prior to 1) row crop agriculture, and 2) the English.  Shoot, potatoes aren't even native to Ireland.

Anyhow, I note that as the native peoples of the plains were more heavily meat eaters than anything else, as that's what there was to eat.  But there is some edible vegetation.

I just don't know much about it.

I guess I'd start off with that I knwo that there's a collection of native berries you can eat.  I mostly know about this as my mohter used to collect some and make wine with them, and I've had syrup and jelly made with them as well. UW publishes a short pamphlet on them, which is available here.  There are also wild leeks, which my mother and father, and at least one of my boyhood friends would recognize, which my mother inaccurately called "wild onions".

And that's about all I know about that.

Which isn't enough to make much of a meal.

Now, a person could probably research this and learn more, and I should, simply because I'd like to know.  Indeed, on the Wind River Indian Reservation there's a "food sovereignty" movement which seeks to reintroduce native foods to the residents there in order to combat health problems, which is a really interesting idea and I hope it has some success.  I hope that they also publish some things on this topic, assuming that they haven't already.

So, in short, at least based on what the present state of my knowledge is, the Thanksgiving fare would be pretty limited, vegetable wise.

Now, what about grow your own?

Well, if expanded out to include what I can grow myself, well now we're on to something else indeed. . . assuming that I can get my pump fixed, which I haven't, solely due to me.

If I were to do that, then I'm almost fully there for a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, omitting only the bread and cranberry sauce.

And I'm not omitting the cranberry sauce.

I'm not omitting the bread, either.

Frankly, I think the modern "bread is bad for you" story is a pile of crap.  People have incorporated grains into their diet for thousands of years.  To the extent that its bad for you, it's likely because Americans don't eat bread, they eat cake.  That's what American bread is.

Of course, I think the keto diet is a pile of crap too, which I discuss on another Lex Anteinternet post.  So here, I'd have to make bread, or buy it, and I'd prefer to make it. Soda bread more particularly.

On this, I'd be inclined, if I could to have an alcoholic beverage for the table, which is another thing, albeit a dangerous one, that humans have been doing since . . . well too long to tell.  The Mayflower sojourners started off their voyage with a stock of beer. . . ironically in a ship that had once been used to haul wine, but they were out when they put in at Plymouth Rock.  By the fall of 1621 it's unlikely that they'd brewed any. as they lacked grain.  The could have vinted wine, however.  If they did, we don't know about it.

So in my hypothetical, if I stuck to local stocks, I could probably do the same.  I don't know how to do it, but I could learn.  But I'm not going to do so, as frankly my recollections of that wine aren't sufficiently warm to cause me to bother with it, and I recall it took tons of sugar, which obviously isn't something I'm going to produce myself.

I'm not going to brew beer either, although plenty of people do.  I don't have the time, or the inclination, and either I'd end up with way too much or not enough.

And this reflects the nature of agrarianism, really.  A life focused on nature with agriculture as part of that.  I don't have to make everything myself, but I have to be focused on the land, have a land ethic, and focus on what's real.

Maybe next year I'll try this.