Thanksgiving is an interesting Holiday as each individual and each family have their own story and traditions….we forget that the Holiday itself has a special place in our beginnings…before the climate to remove names of sports teams with Native American Mascots, and before all historical Americans and explorers were villainized by the actions of a few….there were over 50 years of cooperation and shared habitation between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians. American History is made up of good and bad people, good and bad actions, and a legacy of the evolution of what we are today and what we can be tomorrow. Thanksgiving is really about how we started, how we respected people with different language and culture and how a group of people dreamed of being free from tyranny and from religious persecution. When we look at our history we need to look at it all… not just the bad, not just the good… but ALL…Somehow learning and teaching American History has gotten political….but it is about people….those that came before us and the thousands of individual stories….and we must remember that hundreds of years from now future generations will look at us, those alive today, as historical figures from this time period…. And what do we really want them to see? It’s not about the small percentage that want to promote hate and anger…but the majority of Americans that still believe in what our nation stands for and its foundation…so may we all be Thankful for the Blessings of living in this nation, with all its troubles and disagreements. It is still the place that dreams are made from, still the place that is the envy of all other nations, and still the place where we can move about, choose our path, and worship without fear of death… America is not and will never be perfect, but it is a place we should all be proud of as it is our home and it is only as good as each of us make it… God Bless America!