http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/pilot/3711 As much as I love to tell stories(and I certainly will continue to), and blog about life on the coast or in the mountains, or my kids adventures, I am going to allow myself one more walk on the dark side of an American tradition. In addition, for all you kids working on your thanksgiving projects with pictures of pilgrims and happy natives and doomed birds, at the end of this piece, I am going to spill the beans on a secret I know about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Try as I might, I just have a hard time getting into the tradition of Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong, I dig four days off as much as the next guy. That in itself, is reason enough to celebrate. I tried to do some research on Thanksgiving this morning, using Google. I tried Apache Thanksgiving, Comanche Thanksgiving, Navajo Thanksgiving, Kiowa Thanksgiving, Karankawa Thanksgiving (anyone see a pattern here?), but there just wasn't much. One little piece on the Kiowas caught my eye. An interesting little dining ritual that the Kronks practiced did as well. All in all though, about all I could find, was that most all of the Indian Nations' tribal offices would be closed over the Thanksgiving weekend. Reckon why the original inhabitants of this greal continent don't celebrate this "holiday"? I'm guessing that it has something to do with a WWII type campaign of extermination, broken treaties, being herded on to reservations and stripped of their dignity and heritage. The difference in this campaign and the WWII re-creation of it, was that in our case,the invading army prevailed. After a couple hundred years, a token attempt at acknowledging the wrongs committed against our native population has been mounted, in the way of allowing casino gambling on the reservations (as long as the casino floats), and oh yeah, we get to tax them through the nose on their gambling income. I just find that far too little and far too late. If I were a Native American, I would certainly find this holiday a cause for protest rather than a reason for celebration. Happy Black Friday! Oh, by the way kids.....the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa, They are all nocturnal....... As much as I love to tell stories(and I certainly will continue to), and blog about life on the coast or in the mountains, or my kids adventures, I am going to allow myself one more walk on the dark side of an American tradition. In addition, for all you kids working on your thanksgiving projects with pictures of pilgrims and happy natives and doomed birds, at the end of this piece, I am going to spill the beans on a secret I know about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Try as I might, I just have a hard time getting into the tradition of Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong, I dig four days off as much as the next guy. That in itself, is reason enough to celebrate. I tried to do some research on Thanksgiving this morning, using Google. I tried Apache Thanksgiving, Comanche Thanksgiving, Navajo Thanksgiving, Kiowa Thanksgiving, Karankawa Thanksgiving (anyone see a pattern here?), but there just wasn't much. One little piece on the Kiowas caught my eye. An interesting little dining ritual that the Kronks practiced did as well. All in all though, about all I could find, was that most all of the Indian Nations' tribal offices would be closed over the Thanksgiving weekend. Reckon why the original inhabitants of this greal continent don't celebrate this "holiday"? I'm guessing that it has something to do with a WWII type campaign of extermination, broken treaties, being herded on to reservations and stripped of their dignity and heritage. The difference in this campaign and the WWII re-creation of it, was that in our case,the invading army prevailed. After a couple hundred years, a token attempt at acknowledging the wrongs committed against our native population has been mounted, in the way of allowing casino gambling on the reservations (as long as the casino floats), and oh yeah, we get to tax them through the nose on their gambling income. I just find that far too little and far too late. If I were a Native American, I would certainly find this holiday a cause for protest rather than a reason for celebration. Happy Black Friday! Oh, by the way kids.....the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa, They are all nocturnal....... en-us