Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving - WKRP Turkey Drop - kewego

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99 ML320
94 SL600
92 SL500
95 E320 Cabriolet
87 560SEC
86 300SDL Grease Car
80 380SLC Euro

13 Fiat Abarth
02 Maserati Spyder Cambiocorsa
00 BMW Z3
90 Rolls Royce Silver Spur
80 Ferrari 308 GTSI
88 Jaguar XJS12 H&E Edition
99 Land Rover Discovery

ah, the memories. thanks.

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Classic stuff right there.
Thanks!

I miss WKRP.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Take a trip on Mr. Peabody's time machine.

Happy Franksgiving
How FDR tried, and failed, to change a national holiday.

By MELANIE KIRKPATRICK

Last I checked, Thanksgiving is still scheduled to take place tomorrow. The economic news may be gloomy, but unlike President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression, President Barack Obama has not tinkered with the date of the holiday.

In 1939, FDR decided to move Thanksgiving Day forward by a week. Rather than take place on its traditional date, the last Thursday of November, he decreed that the annual holiday would instead be celebrated a week earlier.

The reason was economic. There were five Thursdays in November that year, which meant that Thanksgiving would fall on the 30th. That left just 20 shopping days till Christmas. By moving the holiday up a week to Nov. 23, the president hoped to give the economy a lift by allowing shoppers more time to make their purchases and—so his theory went—spend more money.

Roosevelt made his decision in part on advice from Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins, who was in turn influenced by Lew Hahn, general manager of the Retail Dry Goods Association. Hahn had warned Hopkins that the late Thanksgiving, Nov. 30, might have an "adverse effect" on the sale of "holiday goods."

In an informal news conference in August announcing his decision, FDR offered a little tutorial on the history of the holiday. Thanksgiving was not a national holiday, he noted, meaning that it was not set by federal law. According to custom, it was up to the president to pick the date every year.

It was not until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln ordered Thanksgiving to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November, that that date became generally accepted, Roosevelt explained. To make sure that reporters got his point, he added that there was nothing sacred about the date.

Nothing sacred? Roosevelt might as well have commanded that roast beef henceforth would replace turkey as the star of the holiday meal, or that cranberries would be banned from the Thanksgiving table. The president badly misread public opinion. His announcement was front-page news the next day, and the public outcry was swift and loud.

First to complain was Plymouth, Mass., home of the Pilgrims and location of the first Thanksgiving in 1621. "Plymouth and Thanksgiving are almost synonymous," intoned the chairman of the town's board of selectmen, "and merchants or no merchants I can't see any reason for changing it."

College football coaches also objected. The United Press news service noted mildly that coaches would find the date change "a considerable headache." The Associated Press predicted that the Roosevelt plan would "kick up more clamor than a hot halfback running the wrong way." By 1939 Thanksgiving football had become a national tradition. Many colleges ended their football seasons with Thanksgiving Day games, a custom that dated back to the 19th century. In Democratic Arkansas, the football coach of Little Ouachita College threatened: "We'll vote the Republican ticket if he interferes with our football."

FDR's proclamation of the date of Thanksgiving had the force of law only in the District of Columbia and the territories of Hawaii and Alaska. A few states mandated that Thanksgiving be marked on the date set by the president, but in most states governors issued pro forma ratifications of the date the president proclaimed.

Now, however, the celebration became a political hot potato. Governors had to read public opinion, examine the local business climate, consider political loyalties, and decide which date to select as the official Thanksgiving.

Do they stick with tradition and celebrate Thanksgiving on Nov. 30, or follow FDR's lead and change the date to Nov. 23? It wasn't long before people started referring to Nov. 30 as the "Republican Thanksgiving" and Nov. 23 as the "Democratic Thanksgiving" or "Franksgiving."

Public sentiment ran heavily against Roosevelt's plan. Ten days after the president's announcement, Gallup published the results of a national poll finding that 62% of Americans surveyed disapproved of the date change. By the time November arrived, the 48 states were nearly evenly divided. Twenty-three decided to stick with the old Thanksgiving, and 22 decided to adopt FDR's date—Texas, Mississippi and Colorado said they would celebrate on both days.

For the next two years, Roosevelt continued to move up the date of Thanksgiving, and more states resigned themselves to celebrating early. By 1941, however, the facts turned against Roosevelt.

By then, retailers had two years of experience with the early Thanksgiving, and data were available regarding the 1939 and 1940 Christmas shopping seasons. In mid-March 1941, The Wall Street Journal reported the results of a survey done in New York City. The Journal's headline put it succinctly: "Early Thanksgiving Not Worth Extra Turkey or Doll." Only 37% of stores surveyed favored the early date. In Washington, the federal government reported that the early Thanksgiving resulted in no boost to retail sales.

And so, on May 20, 1941, FDR called a press conference at the White House and announced that he was changing Thanksgiving Day back to its traditional date. The early Thanksgiving had been an "experiment," he said, and the experiment failed. It was too late to move the 1941 Thanksgiving back to the traditional date, but in 1942 Thanksgiving would revert to the last Thursday of the month. This was "the first time any New Deal experiment was voluntarily abandoned," a Washington Post columnist wrote.

Thankfully, there is a happy ending to this tale of Washington folly: On Dec. 26, 1941, Roosevelt signed a joint resolution passed by Congress making Thanksgiving a national holiday and mandating that it be celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

Ms. Kirkpatrick is a former deputy editor of the Journal's editorial page.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704888404574548082613991744.html

The good old days, when the "holiday season" started with thanksgiving... instead of halloween.

BTW, it might not be too late to snag a rental copy of this holiday classic:

I do work for a semi retired English teacher who lives in El Sobrante, a modest community about 15 miles north of Berkeley. Behind his house is a lot of open space that leads down to a ravine and creek. Wild turkeys done moved in. He'd been telling me about them and then one day I walked out to get a tool and there was about 8 of them in his back yard. He says he's seen as many as 20 at one time.

Much, much more impressive bird than the big breasted variety that has been bred for our ovens and plates. These birds are lean and almost graceful. Also surprisingly big. I've heard stories of them harrassing or semi attacking people and apparently they can do harm.They've been ripping the hell out of his back yard. I haven't seen it but he says they fly just fine. It's illegal to kill them.

I've got some cats, I accidentally adopted a stray and she had 4 kittens. Cute as hell and I'm about to try to give 3 of them away.

Anyway, I wonder how hard it would be to poach one and cook it up to feed to my cats?

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I do too. Tough to find anywhere on the dial because the music rights have all expired and nobody wants to pay to get them again. That's why you only had a DVD release of season one a few years back, and they didn't have any of the licensed music either.

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Jonathan

2011 Mazda2
2000 E320 4Matic Wagon
1994 C280 (retired)

The first season (22 episodes) is currently available on hulu.

I've got wild turkeys here too. Some of them get downright territorial-I saw one chasing a jogger down the street. A show about turkeys last night claimed they can run 25mph. I have seen them fly and it's amazing something so large can get into the air.
I think it would be easy to poach one using a 22 or air rifle. They are quite tasty so I wouldn't be feeding any of the good parts to a cat.

I see plenty of Turkey Buzzards around here.

Not an appetizing looking creature

I understand an ostrich can kill a man w/o too much trouble, maybe it has to be a big one, not sure. I know I wouldn't want one of those turkeys coming after me unless I had at least a baseball bat.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Turkeys are generally quite shy. The jogger chasing turkey had become accustom to humans because a neighbor fed it. The same neighbor also feeds the deer, which are becoming more of a nuisance as they lose their fear of humans. I'm going to do my part to re-instill that fear this winter.

I will take the three kittens, you see I am practicing to be a professional kitten puncher, I could use them for practice.

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For the unSaved, this world is the best it will ever get.

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