Have you, perchance, ever noticed how beige our Thanksgiving meals are? Beige turkey, beige dressing, beige gravy, colorless mashed potatoes, ditto for the bread, dingy wild rice, doldrumy oysters and a green bean casserole that started life out as green, but once the mushroom soup was added —  you guessed it — also turned beige.  Ham, corn and sweet potatoes try to save the day, but even their original colors get bleached out by the time they reach the table.

Let’s face it, without cranberry sauce we’d be in a deep lusterless funk. The mission of those berries must be a blood transfusion for our eyes. Like a neon light, the glow of their vibrant crimson shocks life into the rest of the visual monotony.

Perhaps we should start a turkey revolt.  Like flood Jennie-O with requests for colored turkeys.  Why not lime green or florescent orange?  Jello colors.  Would our stomachs protest? Would our turkey revolt be revolting?

The irony is that we don’t even see the lack of color in our Thanksgiving feasts. Years of conditioning have taught us that all that beige tastes really yummy. A perfect example of this is dressing.  In reality it looks used.  Like fagged out food that’s been around the block a few times.  But to us its appearance is mouth watering because we know it’s delicious.  We also know that if we were to dye it periwinkle blue, it wouldn’t enhance its flavor one iota. It’s perfect just like it is. Beige.

If anyone is to blame for this achromatic holiday spread, it has to be the pilgrims. To prove my point have you ever seen a pilgrim wearing a psychedelic dashiki? No, you haven’t because they wore black.  Black and that ridiculous sissified white starched collar. Just what did they have against colors?  Or perhaps they had really poor vision and hues escaped them.  This could well be true for have you ever seen a pilgrim wearing glasses?  Just think how different Thanksgiving could have been had InnoVision Eye Care been around then.

There seems to be good reason why they were called pilgrims.  Pill and grim.  Yup, grim pills. Besides their outfits, much of the blame has to be on those buckles. You know the ones — on their shoes and hats.  Can anybody tell me why they were always square — or at least with sharp corners.  And big?  And dorky?

I’m trying to picture the men in Austin wearing buckles on their Nikes along with those big white stiff collars, but I’m having difficulty.  I say up with hoodies and t-shirts and pajama tops.  Starch never improved the world.  Makes you wonder about pilgrim undies.

I guess it could be said that the Puritans and Indians started America’s first test kitchen. Think about it. Had the word spread to other tribes they may well have also had America’s first Sioux sous chef!  (Sorry!  That was lame.)

In November of 1621, 53 pilgrims and 90 Wampanoag Indians shared each others’ cuisine.  Actually, they  feasted for three days. Relations must have been very chummy to have lasted that long. Imagine the scene. Did the women exchange recipe cards?  Did they like each others’ food? I wonder if the kiddies got to pull on the wishbones or if turkeys even had wishbones 496 years ago? And who had to clean up all those dirty dishes?

With no Super Bowl, what did the men talk about — deer hides, bear tracks and raccoon scat? And do you suppose the pilgrim women admired the softness of the squaws’ gnawed-on suede outfits and if they contemplated how much easier life would be for them if they chewed their collars instead of starching them?

It’s hard to picture three days of such conversations. But, then, on the third day, words began  to trail off, food grew scarce, hospitality waned and everyone — socially pooped out — finally went home. We all know that fish and company go bad after three days.  The saying probably started there.

So, how will your holiday go this year? Will you find someone who’s willing to sit next to Aunt Bertha, and will Grampa D. Cline tell the same jokes you’ve heard at every Thanksgiving gathering for the last decade?  Will the children be glued to their iPhones during the meal and will the cook have remembered to take the bags of unmentionable turkey parts out of the cavities before she baked it?  Moreover, will the burps that erupt unwittingly around the table once again be an annual sign of unconditional contentment?

I’m guessing that no one will wear anything with starch in it. Nor will they wear fringed suede dresses or buckled hats. I’m thinking that you’ll all have a grand old time and that you’ll be wondering along with the rest of us why, for goodness sake, when the puritans planned their big shindig, that they did not invent a refrigerator
with shelf space large enough to hold a great big turkey?