Really, Thanksgiving? I don't think so!

Perhaps, Thanksgiving isn't quite the word for it. Maybe it should be something more along the lines of Forgive Us day. Every year we engage in this farce called Thanksgiving. We pretend that all was well at the Plymouth Colony. We extend our hand in friendship and thanks for the food and gifts we were given. The country pretends we are little innocent pilgrims who the local tribes took pity on and bestowed us with these gifts to help preserve us.

I have a better idea. Let's change Thanksgiving day to forgiveness day! On this day every year, each person in this country should seek out and find a Native American and beg forgiveness for the atrocities we committed against them. Let's ask forgiveness for the smallpox blankets we gave them, wiping out whole tribes. Let's ask forgiveness for slaughtering them, ruining and poisoning the land we stole from them. Let's ask forgiveness for cramming them into tiny areas of land to live in desperate poverty, ripping their language and traditions from them. Why don't we ask them to forgive us for the lies and trickery we subjected them to in every treaty we ever entered into with them.

Are you pissed off yet? You probably are at what you perceive as the undeserved chastising stated above but if you think I'm wrong let's look at this another way.

Next year Muslim radicals come to our north east coast. Let's just say for the sake of realism that they possess greater numbers and far superior weapons than our own. Things we have never conceived of. They come here to seek a new life where they can have their freedom of religion. After all that is what truly brought the pilgrims to these shores.

When they first arrive we try to befriend them these new people in our country that we really know nothing about. We help them as they struggle to survive the first few years. They secretly however believe us to be a stupid heathen people all the while accepting our charity. Realizing they need our land and that as an inferior race they need to rid themselves of us they unleash one of the chemical and biological weapons within their arsenal. Let's choose smallpox since this is not so far off the mark of what they would really have.

Now they have already been vaccinated knowing they may have to use these weapons against the peoples in this new land they have moved too. Within months our entire country is hit with smallpox. Millions die, the economy falls apart, farmers are all but wiped out and our food supplies start to dwindle. In the meantime, more and more Muslim radicals arrive. Taking over huge sections of the country in the wake of our societies breakdown. We mount attack after attack desperately trying to gain control of our country back. We move our people farther and farther away from them in an effort to protect those that cannot protect themselves. Some battles are won and some are lost but the battles themselves take a huge toll on our numbers as they have far superior weaponry to us.

As the years pass we begin to try negotiating with them. They sign agreements with us saying they will not come any further than these areas but more radicals arrive everyday. Soon they are crowding and out of room. They begin to push us off the land they had agreed we could keep. When we mount new attacks they unleash anthrax and wipe out millions more. This behavior continues until we are tiny fractioned groups. They break us down completely from what we once were as a people. Divide us and heard us into areas that they don't want. We are free only in those boundaries, are rationed our food, clothes and other essentials as they see fit. Our children are taken away to be brainwashed and taught their language and their beliefs.

So you get the picture.....

The radical muslims now declare a holiday for the day they first landed. Every year on that date they have huge celebrations and great feasts. People travel from miles around to participate and share in the victory they achieved. So I ask you, would you celebrate this holiday and give thanks for what was done to our great society? Or would you be disgusted by the fact that they would celebrate a day that had all but destroyed us as a nation and a people.

So then maybe it's time, maybe it's not such a reach to realize Thanksgiving day should really be made Forgiveness Day. A day when we celebrate the peoples and heritages that we all but wiped out.

In Honor of Halloween!

In honor of Halloween, we need a little ghost story I think. What better ghost story than one that you are actually experiencing. We have recently moved into a house we purchased in foreclosure. There are few details I am able to find about the house before we acquired it. So background history is a little difficult to come up with. However, the fact is something has happened here that definitely left an impression.

Our first night in this house left little doubt in our minds that we are not the only occupants. There is nothing like having someone or something staring at you in bed from your hallway. Every hair on your body stands on end. Our hallway seems to be a key place for our guest or guests. Even the bathroom there will make you come out of your skin. Especially, when you look over to the door and find yourself staring at a black dog guarding it. We, however, don't have a black dog.

Creepy, well not as creepy as waking up in the middle of the night to find a black shadow standing over your bed. We have started closing the hallway door at night but they seem to think that is not a deterrent to just coming right on in. Although, it does seem to help that whole being "watched" feeling. Waking almost every night between 11:30 and 12:00 gets old but you just deal with it.

One afternoon while washing the dishes I had the distinct impression my husband had quietly come into the kitchen to give me a kiss. So I turned to plant one on him as he ran his hand across my lower back. Imagine my surprise when I turned to find no one there.

You walk through the house minding your own business putting away laundry and boom. As you come by the bedroom closet you get the dog laying there. Or is he there at all? Nope not our dog, she is sleeping in the living room. New people come into the house and the electricity in the hallway energizes again, as if they bring some threat with them.

The adventures have quieted as we have continued living here. We have learned the bedroom door has to be shut to have a peaceful nights sleep. You learn to ignore things moving in the corner of your eye. You learn to ignore your hair standing on end when you walk through different spots in the house. Or that incredibly cold spot building at your back as you fold laundry. That special feeling of being watched just becomes second nature and soon you dismiss it also.

So with my true ghost story I wish you all a ghostly Halloween!