Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Thanksgiving Works

Transcript

How Thanksgiving Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from House Stuffworks dot com. Welcome to the podcast. This
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: is Josh. There's Chuck. That's right, that's our best turkey. Yeah,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: that was not a turkey. I believe that was the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: signal U the police are coming to Owen Wilson Houston
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: bottle rocket. That's right. Nice? Sorry, nice hipster reference, Chuck?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Is it? I thought that made me a big nerd. No, No,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that's it was a cool movie and everybody should know
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: about it. Um So turkeys turkeys, Yes, let's I'm not
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: saying it. Say it. No, let's talk turkey. Okay, so
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we are talking turkey. Um it's almost Thanksgiving and I'm
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I'm getting a little hungry. Yeah, it's my favorite holiday. Yeah?
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Is it really? That's weird? Is it? Yeah? What's yours?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Harbor Day? Flying Day? No? Really? Thanksgivings your favorite holiday? Why? Well?
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed the rituals of the football. I like the meal.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I like the sentiment behind it, giving thanks and being thankful.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: What about presents? You get no presents on Thanksgiving? My
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: present is being off work for a few days and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: laying around and drinking. Uh, that is the gift that
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: keeps on giving. That's great. I had no idea, Chucking
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and fantastic. You were the first person I've ever met
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: whose favorite holidays Thanksgiving. That's cool, Get out more. My
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: collection is growing more replete. What's your favorite holiday though? Christmas? Really?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I like Christmas too, But there's a whole,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: you know, shopping thing and the greed of the companies,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: it's all. It taints it a bit, in my opinion.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: The greed is only it only goes as far as
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: you let it. You know, if you buy somebody at
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: present you think is appropriate and not too excessive, they're
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: not gonna like shove it back in your face. And
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: so you take this back and double what you paid
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: for it. Right. I just mean more along the lines
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: of the consumerism as a whole, I understand. But yeah,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm off my soapbox. Well let's let's get
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: back to Chuck's favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. And um, actually everything
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: you know about Thanksgiving is wrong me, everybody, everybody, most
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: people right, well, actually I shouldn't say most things. You know,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: those elementary school pageants that. You know, a lot of
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: us are gonna be forced to go watch this season
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: sure or have seen already. Scarily enough, those are actually
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: fairly accurate as far as the uh, the Pilgrims and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the Native Americans sitting down together. Yeah, that is very
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: much the bare bones of the story, right. The wardrobe
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: is off. Apparently no buckles. Pilgrims didn't wear the they
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: don't look like the Quaker road sky or they apparently
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: they only wore black and white on Sunday. And the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: buckles again didn't come into fashion until about fifty or
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: sixty years later, much later. Yeah, um, so the buckles.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: You you almost never saw a um you know, the
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: cartoon turkeys dressed like a pilgrim. Very rarely did you
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: see that in North America in the seventeenth century. Um,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I've been working on that one. It gets no laughs. Ever,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: you want to repeat it, we'll move on. It might
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: be funny at the second time. So, yeah, there was
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: there was a guy named Squantu, There were Puritans, settlers, ok,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the Pilgrims, and they did sit down for a feast,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and they landed on Plymouth Rock. Yeah, there was a
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: lot more to the story, though, all right, so you
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: want me to give you a little background here, Okay.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: So basically the Puritans, and it wasn't just the Puritans
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: who settled Plymouth. Um, there was actually another group called
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the Strangers who thought the Puritans were complete religious wackos. Oh. Yeah,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: they did not really get along very well. Um, but
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: they were all in it together. They called themselves the Strangers.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Uh no, I think the Puritans called them the Strangers. Yeah.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: A lot of them were Catholic. Yeah. Um, so they
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: all they were all in it together because they were
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: all in deep, really really big trouble. When they landed,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: it was November, so they showed up just in time
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: for a harsh northeastern winter. Um. And in the first
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: four months, forty eight of the first of the original
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: hundred people died. We're talking dying of exposure, of starvation,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: like horrible ways to die. And the people who survived
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the winner weren't much better off than the ones who died.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: They still had no idea what they were doing, Like
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: they brought some types of grain with them that wouldn't
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: grow in North America. Um, I didn't know what they
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: were getting into it all. No, No, they wouldn't have said, hey,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: let's land in Massachusetts in November. I bet it's nice exactly. Um,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So there was one big stroke of luck that would
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: actually prove to be enormous luck. Um. They found a
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: deserted um wapa noag settlement called Pawtucket. Pawtucket actually a
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: band in his bad word, it's um. Actually it was
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: deserted because pretty much the entire population had been decimated
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: by smallpox, which was courtesy of um English explorers and
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: traders who had come through and said, hey, and here's
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: some smallpox. So um it was. It was abandoned. It
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: was deserted. There's no one living there, basically just bones
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: laying around, but the structures were still there. So the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: pilgrims move into this village. It just so happens that
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a guy named Squanto had grown That was his home village,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: that's where he'd grown up. But he wasn't there when
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the smallpox hit, or else he would have likely died
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: with everybody else. He was actually in England. There was
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: a depending on who you ask, he was either sponsored
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: by an English trader and sent to England to be educated,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: or he was shipped to England as a slave which
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know this, but the Puritans
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: actually helped set off the slave trade in North America
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: before we visited Africa. We used Native Americans as slaves,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and we shipped him back to England commonly um. Either way,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Squanto was educated in England and he'd been away from
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: several years. He comes home to his home village to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: find a bunch of white people squatting there. But it
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: just so happens that the group of white people are
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: starving around the verge of death, and all of a sudden,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: one of the handful of Native Americans who can speak
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: English in in on the North American continent at that time,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: show up out of the wilderness and says, let me help.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: That's crazy how it worked out like that, Well, you
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: can imagine the Puritans viewed this as they viewed Squanto
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: as being sent by God, which actually ended up justifying
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: centuries of you know, genocide and all that, um, because
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: we were meant to be here clearly, And you kind
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of have to wonder that if um Squanto had been
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: given a flash of the future, would he have helped
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, sure we have internet and mental cigarettes,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: but at what cost? You know, it makes you wonder
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: if he would have just kind of walked away back
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: into the woods like good luck, those fifty may have
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: died and uh changed the course of you know, American
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: history for revocably. Yeah. So, um he helps him. He
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: basically teaches the Puritans how to survive in North America,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: how to farm, what to grow get corn, corn big
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: one huge, which we both know is enormous. And um,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: let's see how to hunt deer, how to harvest shellfish, um,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and that from maple trees. So he he, he saves
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: this group of people. And UM it is true that
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: out of respect for his help, and by this time
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Squanto had been adopted by or absorbed into a nearby
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Wapanoag tribe. UM, so out of gratitude, they invited Squanto
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and his family for a celebratory feast, which was the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: first Thanksgiving exactly. And that's the one that you'll see
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: in elementary schools around the country this November. And UH
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: historians think that um it actually did take place in
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the fall, so that that much is on part. It's
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: not probably not what in the fourth Thursday and Thanksgiving.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: And I doubt if they watched the New football or
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: maybe they did sports were involved. Yeah, uh, and they
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: said they probably based the the dinner on the Native
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: American meal plan, which I did a little research into that.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: And if you want to honor your our Native American
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: friends here and this Thanksgiving, then you can sit down
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and have a traditional Native American meal of a bean soups,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: fried mash nice not quite sure what that is. I think, uh,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: smushed corn with public milk, and it sounds good. You
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: can roast yourself a rabbit and uh chow down on
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: some mutton stew and a little sheep's head and I
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: would eat all that. I would try. Sheep's head I
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: never have, but I would happily eat all the rest
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, and that that would be a traditional
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: or you know those foods are traditional Native American foods. Yeah,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: there was, there's one. And and like Chuck said, the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: this this much more, this first Thanksgiving much more followed
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the Native Americans tradition of Thanksgiving. Um. Had it followed
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the Puritans version of Thanksgiving, there would have been a
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: lot of um praying and not dancing and basically just
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: standing around being very solemn um. And the Puritans had
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: days of Thanksgiving like crazy. Um, the Native Americans in
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the northeast, the Algonquin speaking people's they celebrated six times
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a year, and one of them was the harvest, which
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: is actually found world round. Yeah, the bunch of ancient
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: cultures and recent cultures celebrated harvest Thanksgiving. Yeah, so um,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that's that's actually kind of what we do today. We
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: still kind of celebrated a little more like the the
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Indian version than the Puritan version. So um, that's the
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: story of the First Thanksgiving and basically it led to
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I've read I've read analysis on it, and people speculate
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that the Puritans were grateful, but at the same time
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: they did see Squanto sent by God like he had
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: no choice in it. And ultimately they were kind of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: getting along because they were about the only English in
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the area and that they were vastly outnumbered by the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Native Americans. Well, within twenty years, the children of both
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of these groups who were seated at the First Thanksgiving
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: dinner were murdering one another in King Philip's War, And
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that was the beginning of that. Right, So let's flash
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: forward a little bit show to the official Thanksgivings. Yeah,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the way we recognize that right, Well, if you're talking
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: about officially recognized George Washington started at, Yeah, that's the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: sporadic Thanksgiving celebrations that marked actually, sadly, a lot of
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: them marked um victories over Native trial vibes. Um, and
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: considering how things got started, it's that's quite a kick
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: in the face. Yeah. Ultimately, if you are descended from
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a immigrant from the East, specifically European immigrant, and you're
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: here in the US and you celebrate Thanksgiving, sadly, what
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: you're really giving thanks for is being on the winning side.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: You know. Um, the Native Americans don't necessarily take thanks
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Giving the same way that people of Anglo descent or
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: European descent in general do. Um. There's actually a day
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: of morning that they celebrate near Plymouth. Yes, just to
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: drive the point home. Yeah, they didn't land on Plymouth Rock.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Plymouth Rock landed on them, right, that's the saying. So. Yeah,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but our modern version of Thanksgiving actually comes from a
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: magazine editor. Right now, Chuck was saying, George Washington, he said,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: let's just consolidate all these Thanksgiving days into one. It
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: didn't really take off, though, but he was the he
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: was the first one to say it. A magazine editor
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: named Sarah hale Um started this to writing campaign. Now,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: she had actually come across the two surviving documents that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: described the first Thanksgiving, so she got some of it's
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: pretty cool, um, but she really romanticized it and embellished it, um,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and gave us what we think of when we think
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: of Thanksgiving today, you know, and what the little kids
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: in elementary school are putting on It all basically came
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: from this magazine editor's imagination. Um. Take pumpkin pies for example,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I love too, I love pumpkin pie. I do too,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm grateful that they're part of the Thanksgiving and
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I'm thankful for it. Um. But did you know that
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: there was literally impossible that pumpkin pies were part of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the first Thanksgiving. Do you wanna know why? My guess
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: would be that there were no pumpkins. There were pumpkins,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: pumpkins are kind of squashed, and there was no native
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to North America. There was pie, but Europeans knew how
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to make pie, So what's the problem. Not They probably
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: didn't have the flour, they probably didn't have the milk.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Even if they did, Still, a year after they'd been there,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the pilar him his head and managed to build a
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: functioning oven yet, right, so it's literally impossible that they
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: had pies. And I know they didn't have the cool
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: whip to doll up on top. Definitely not oil or cream, right, yeah, cream,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that's my that's my vote. Agreed. So Lincoln ratifies UH
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and makes it the really official every day he I
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: think he made it the last day of I think
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: he made it the last day of November. But it
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: was from Sarah Hale, from Sarah Hale's letter writing campaign.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: And then the Thursday thing came along. I think Franklin
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt moved it up a week and I love this part.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: He They actually started calling it Frank's Giving. It's just
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to kind of chide him a little bit because he
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: changed it up. Yeah, why did he UH? For Christmas shopping?
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: And he did it because the big national retailers were
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: lobbying him to extend the Christmas shopping season, right, I did.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Should we talk about turkey? Let's talk, yes about about turkey.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I know you refused to say talk turkey. I love it.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Turkey was not a part of Thanksgiving. Initially they pretty
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: much said that, correct, It was most likely venison or
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: some other sort of foul. One there another, there was foul.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And actually, at the time, if you talked to a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Puritan about turkey, they would have that that actually characterized
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: any kind of foul. So even if they did use
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the word turkey, which they didn't, it could mean anything.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: But there probably were like ducks and geese on the table.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And we know there was also cranberry too. Yeah, which
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: is one thing that still holds true today, which is
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: nice to go ahead with the turkey, Chuck, Well, Turkey
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: was not a part back then, but it very much
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: is now of Americans now eat Thanksgiving on turkey, and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I would imagine the tim person who don't. A lot
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: of those are probably vegetarian. I can't imagine you would
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: choose another meat if you're not a vegetarian other than turkey,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: So you have to be some sort of communists. Yeah,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: if we have listeners out there who do who are
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: not vegetarian and who opt for steak on Thanksgiving, I'd
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Yes, I'd be very cool.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: But to furkey is what the vegetarians I prefer because
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: they like to keep it real, keep it traditions. Anyone
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: really prefer to furkey or is it done out of
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: some sort of obligation? Do you think uh? Like I said,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's trying to keep up with the tradition
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: while still maintaining the ethics that the vegetarians hold understood,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that's my that's my guess, understand, And I think we
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: shoul talking about football. Wait, hold on, I got more
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: on turkey. Okay. First of all, we're expected to be
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: forty six million turkeys this year for Thanksgiving, Alan wowellion pounds.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of turkey. And while we're still on
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the topic of turkey, can I tell you one more thing?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: All right? So you know how a trip to fan
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: makes you sleepy? Yes, that's not the case. Trip to
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: fan that you should explain as a chemical in turkey? Correct,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: that supposedly makes you sleepy, and actually it does encourage
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the production of saratonin, which is a calming agent on
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the nervous system. The problem is this trip to fan
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is effective pretty much only on an empty stomach. Okay,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So they said, well, what is it about the turkey
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that makes you sleepy? It's not the turkey a loan,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: it's actually the meal, right, Okay, The average thing giving
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the serving. This isn't like the whole spread. This is
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: what you or I are going to sit down and eat.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: The average meal has three thousand calories and two nine
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: grams of fat. Wow, I looked it up, my friend.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: That's the equivalent of six big Max. I was gonna say,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I bet you're gonna put it in big Mac terms.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I knew that was coming back. Is like, it should
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: be a standard measure seven six six. Yeah, it's actually
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: calorie wise, it's about five big Max. Fat gram wise,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: it's about six big mas. Um. That would make me
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: sleepy if I ate six big macs exactly. The digestion chuck.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: You and I we know and love the fight or
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: flight response, right. Do you remember when when when you're
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: faced with danger, digestion stops and everything Well, this is
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: the exact opposite. Everything else slows down, so your stomach
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: can be like, oh, I have to get rid of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: this because it's a carved, heavy meal. And actually with that,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: with three thousand calories and two and twenty nine fat grams,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: we would have to run in a moderate pace for
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: four straight hours to burn that off. And we don't
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: do that, you know, we don't instead, as Chuck was saying,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: watch football. Yes, even people who don't like football. Many
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: times we'll watch football on Thanksgiving for the tradition of it.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I love football, I love the NFL. I love the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Atlanta Falcons. I'll just go ahead and say that I'm
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: more college football guy myself. But yes, I know that's fine.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I like that too. But yeah, that's started. In UH four,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the Detroit Lions played the Chicago Bears and lost in
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and but they lost. It was the lions first year.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: The Bears were the national champs, and they only lost
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: thirteen to sixteen, So pretty good showing for a first
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: year club, right, they only lost by three points, and
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: uh save seven years from thirty to forty four they
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: did not play football, And I believe it probably something
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: to do with World War two. I didn't look it up. Yeah, probably,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: but I doubt if that's coincidence. You know. I have
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: a theory about the Lions. Actually, I think that they
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: can never pull together a truly decent team because there's
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: so many players out there don't want to play on
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and don't want to play on Christmas. The Lions
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: have to play on both days almost every year. Robbing
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: their families of fun. Uh. And the Cowboys are the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: other team that aditionally plays and they started at that
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: tradition in nine six. They were Johnny Come Lately, Johnny
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Come Lately, and UH. A couple of more things here.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is is I don't I
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: don't watch it, which is, UM, I'm just not a
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: big parade guy. But if you're ever in New York City,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: here's a little tip around Thanksgiving. One thing that's really
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: fun to do. My wife and I did it one
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: year is to go the day before the Thanksgiving Day
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: parade and watch the the balloons being blown up. You
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: just walk around Central Park. They're out there, got the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: streets closed down, they're blowing up. You know, you see
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: kermit on the ground. They're blowing them up, and there's
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: just kids everywhere and parents everywhere, and uh, it's a delight.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And it's not just the mob scene of the actual parade.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's a lot more fun. And that's Chuck's
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: recommendation for New York City. Yeah, and I've learned over
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: time that, um, following Chuck around can yield some pretty
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: cool adventures. You could see Thanksgiving Day parade, balloons being
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: blown up. You might run into Tony Shalub. You could
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: find a severed head in a bucket. There's all sorts
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: of crazy stuff that happens. Been showing. I sound much
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: more interesting when I start naming these things out loud. Yeah,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: so chucky, You got anything else? Uh No, that's it,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: It's my favorite. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: this year. Yeah, Happy Thanksgiving. Remember with the stuff turkey,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that's twenty two to twenty four minutes per pound at
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: three right, if you don't go to the trouble of
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: stuff in your your turkey, just knock that down to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty minutes per pound at the same temperature.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Or you could just forego all that and sit down
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to a plate of six big max. Yeah, same result, right, exactly. Well,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: until then, Happy Thanksgiving, and remember the reason for this
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: season as to give thanks for things you have in
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: your life. Now it's a busy day. There's football, there's food,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: there's fun. Take a short time reflect on things, and
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: don't forget about the vanquished. For more on this and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com?
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Let us know what you think, Send an email to
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, Are
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: you