Klarinet Archive - Posting 000767.txt from 2004/11

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Happy Thanksgiving
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:37:14 -0500

At 08:09 AM 11/30/2004 -0600, Forest Aten wrote:
>Bill,
>
>Ahhhh....
>
>So my relatives....the ones who left Holland for Scotland (because of
>religious repression)....and then moved on to Jamestown Settlement in
>America (because of religious repression)....count?
>(soon after arriving, had the first boy baby in the settlement)
>
>They were Huguenots.
>See: http://www.geocities.com/hugenoteblad/hist-hug.htm
>
>Americans have no exclusivity on giving "thanks". To designate a particular
>day to give "thanks" could have been done for any variety of reasons.
>Political, commercial....you name it. Maybe both.

I guess I am not sure what you are arguing here. We both agree that many
people left religious oppression and sailed to America. And while anyone
can give thanks, only the US has an official "Thanksgiving" day (OK, Canada
does, too, but on a different date). Please try to see past your cynicism
and consider the possibility (probability, given the long history) that
Thanksgiving Day was created for purely altruistic reasons, and to express
sincere thankfulness to God and our fellow man, rather than as a scam
developed by the poultry industry to move some dead bird carcasses.

As an aside on religious persecution: My family that came over from
Bavaria was Catholic rather than Protestant because they lived on one
particular side of an arbitrary line. Furthermore, there is some evidence
that, in the absence of religious persecution, we might well have been Jewish!

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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