Henrietta Hay's Column

In spite of all the moaning and groaning across the land, there is still a great deal to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season:

1. The election is over.

2. My guy won.

3. Amendments 11 and 17 lost.

4. Pat Schroeder's seat in the House will be kept by a liberal, pro-choice Democratic woman.

5. There will be two more women in the House and one more in the Senate than there were in the last session of Congress. That's still a pretty low percentage, but we're gettin' there.

Over the years there have been various things to be thankful for, and various forms of celebrations.

The Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving in 1621 were thankful for being alive. Of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower who had landed at Plymouth a year before, over half had died from pneumonia and the privations of a hard winter. The survivors were befriended and helped by a tribe of Wampanoag Indians. One of them, an Indian named Squanto spoke English. That must have been a surprise to the colonists, and is still one of history's unsolved mysteries. That October the colonists and their Indian allies celebrated the first harvest together. For three days they feasted on wild turkey and venison, pumpkin and corn. It was the first Thanksgiving.

George Washington was thankful for the new Constitution, and declared a day of Thanksgiving in 1789. Thomas Jefferson, however, considered holidays a "monarchical practice," and paid no attention to Thanksgiving, much to the disgust of the federal employees of the day. Maybe he had nothing to be thankful for.

It took a woman, and apparently a very pushy one at that, to get the official holiday idea going. According to Cecil Adams in "More of the Straight Dope," a New Hampshire native named Mrs. Hale was obsessed with the idea of a national holiday of Thanksgiving. She wrote a novel in 1837 called Northwood, which contained an entire chapter devoted to a detailed description of a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and pumpkin pie. Apparently she had read her history. She became editor of Godey's Ladies Book, sort of the Vanity Fair of its day, and continued her campaign. Each fall she elaborated on that original feast by printing Thanksgiving recipes such as "ham soaked in cider three weeks, stuffed with sweet potatoes and baked in maple syrup." The story says that eventually she was able to pitch her idea in person to President Lincoln. Perhaps because he was thankful to get rid of her, Abe Lincoln finally issued a proclamation of Thanksgiving in 1863, setting aside the last Thursday in November as the official day.

When I was in C. U. I was thankful for the annual Thanksgiving Day football game between Colorado University and Denver University in the old Merchant's Park in Denver. My dad would always take me and any of my friends who happened to be around to the game, while my mother stayed home and cooked a huge dinner. I am ashamed to admit this now, but at the time I thought that was normal. The only thing I can say in my defense is that maybe she really didn't like football.

Football still has to compete with turkey for top billing on Thanksgiving Day. "Unknown" made the quotation books by commenting that "On Thanksgiving day all over America people sit down to dinner at the same time -- half-time."

We really don't take Thanksgiving very seriously any more, but it is probably the holiday on which we eat the most. I even found an article by a dietitian who advised those on weight-reducing diets to shift into "weight-maintenance" between Thanksgiving and Christmas to avoid damaging their morale.

Whether we are thankful for football or food - or both - it is a day to make us think about what we really have. There are many things I am thankful for -- my family, my friends, a late life career and the fact that I live in a country where decisions are still made by elections. Even if the other side wins, life will go on. This cannot be said of many countries in the world.

Whether you will be eating turkey or ham baked in maple syrup, Happy Thanksgiving.