D.F.

Krause

Read D.F.'s bio and previous columns

November 27, 2008

Gather Round, Children, For the Story of Thanksgiving

Gather round, boys and girls. It’s time for Uncle D.F. to tell you the story of Thanksgiving.

Now, in American history, we had pilgrims and Indians. The pilgrims were white people who came from Europe looking for freedom and opportunity. The Indians came from Cleveland and kept telling stories the pilgrims figured had something to do with their belief in some ancient god.

“They kept saying their river caught on fire,” said one of the pilgrims. “Like that could ever happen. And he kept talking about some Chief Kucinich. He sounds weird.”

Anyway, when the pilgrims arrived the Indians didn’t like it at first because the last Europeans also came to Ohio – Columbus, specifically – and made all kinds of trouble. The pilgrims wanted the Indians to know that they were different, so they offered to have the Indians come over for dinner.

“This is what we call turkey, kemo sabi,” said the leader of the pilgrims.

“What do you think, we’re some sort of idiots or something?” said the Indian chief. “We know what a freaking turkey is.”

This is going well, thought the pilgrim leader, figuring he might want to change the subject.

“We like to stuff our turkey to make it more interesting,” the pilgrim leader said. “We stuff it with breadcrumbs, cut up celery and toxic mortgage assets. It gives it sort of a bearish taste.”

The Indian chief turned to his assistant and said, “If they’re all like this, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. They’ll probably kill themselves inside of a month or two just by falling into holes and crashing into trees.”

The assistant nodded.

“Me agree, chief,” he said. “But don’t sayum anything until they serve us the mashed potatoes and gravy.”

The chief slapped his assistant upside the head.

“Sayum?” he said. “Since when do you talk like that?”

“I learned it on Featherbook.com,” the assistant replied. “I’m friends with these Hurons from up in Michigan. They have all this lingo.”

The pilgrim women came out of the kitchen carrying a huge platter with a big, stuffed, dressed turkey on it. Why the turkey was dressed in stilettos and a halter top, I’ll never know, but it still looked very delicious.

“Would you and your tribe like the drumsticks, chief?” said the pilgrim woman.

“All you white people think we do nothing but march around beating war drums, don’t you?” said the chief. “Drumsticks indeed!”

“I’ll take the drumstick!” said a young tribal warrior, grabbing it from the pilgrim woman and taking a bite. “Hey, sheef, vis iz meely good!”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Thundering Thumbnail,” the chief said. “These white people are going to think we’re all just a bunch of savages.”

Just about then, the mashed potatoes came out, and the pilgrims bowed their heads to give thanks: “Dear Lord, we thank you for bringing us to this land of abundance, for the Indians, for Cleveland, for the burning river and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And whoever this Chief Kucinich is, it’s too bad he’s not here. He sounds very interesting.”

“Uncle D.F.! This isn’t how the first Thanksgiving went!”

“How do you know? Were you there?”

“The Indians weren’t from Cleveland!”

Kids today. They think they know so much. I’m thankful for them, though, and my readers should be too. It’s about time someone else listened to my nonsense.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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