If it weren’t for Edward Winslow, we’d still be giving no fucks instead of giving much thanks. His lucid words of good crops and better fortune were the seeds that grew into our modern-day celebration Thanksgiving, and while he was quite the drunkard and no doubt penned his bubbly screed whilst chin-deep in gin and juice, he was also a man of hops and profound ale-wisdom. Oh did he love his beer and thankfully so, as this in turn was the exact ingredient that finally fermented the meal of all meals into a national holiday.
It was 1631 and frankly, everything had gone to shit. The Wampanoag tribe had become petty and indignant towards the Pilgrim settlers, who in return had become repugnant and useless. The annual “gathering of thanks” had become nothing more than a showboating “look at me, I’m an Indian, with all my colorful garb and feasty food I catch and you don’t do shit” vs “Yeah, well, I discovered your sorry asses and now I’m tired and stuff. Whatever.”
To be fair though, the Pilgrims had in fact become quite lazy and offered to bring only “appetizers” or spoons to the annual dinner, so the Wamps were right in being duly pissed. They built porches and adirondack chairs instead of hunting fowl and small game. They wrote poems and grew beards instead of carving canoes with their bare hands out of a felled spruce that had been charred in a slow deep sweat lodge for 30 days. In other words, there was no “thanks” to be had on the Wamps’ side, if you know what I mean.
All of this needed to change, though, and change quick. The Pilgrims knew they had to start showing up with a platter of sand or something, or the great Wampanoag tribe would surely no longer share their rich bounty, and they’d starve to death eating sand. So Mr. Winslow and his two very close associates, Mr. Constance Abbot and Solomon Janeway, roused their brains for a storm unlike any other. They would save the settlers from certain death and create the perfect item to bring to this most joyous feast of giving and thanks!
Well, it only took a few hours of drinking Solomon’s famous triple-fermented heather ale before the three men realized the answer was right in front of them all along; when they had sat on their porch procrastinating about a loom to be fixed, or an oxen yoke to be mended, all the while sipping ale heartily from their pewter mug, they had never once offered the beleaguered natives one drop of their devilish drip. They had held out!
“Good fucking God, lads, we’ve had it right here in front of our pointy little wigs all along,” bellowed Winslow. “Gentleman! WE’RE BRINGING THE BEER!”
And so it was and preserved, and thereafter, and for every year since, our clans have convened annually on this final Thursday in November, and at this time we each expound on our share and thanks—but there is always one among us who stands tallest and most thankful, and that is how it should be, for they are the ones who show up with the beer.