Episode 29 - Thanksgiving

welcome to this episode of the wolf in

the shepherd

today we're gonna be talking about

thanksgiving you know that

day that we eat turkey

we typically you know here in texas

watch the cowboys

lose the football game and we

sit around and we eat a bunch of food

and we totally forget about what

happened

honestly now this year 400 years ago

with that first thanksgiving you know we

we go to these

little plays you know pre-coveted and

you've got the kids and they dress up as

indians they dress up as pilgrims and

and you have these little thanksgiving

plays and everything but

what what really are we looking at with

thanksgiving and

how is thanksgiving celebrated around

the world

so as we delve into thanksgiving

in this thanksgiving week what do you

have for us wolf

well first of all i don't think the kids

can run around rest as native americans

anymore i think

that that's been stamped out yeah that's

probably true

that's probably true yeah um well i just

i don't go to my kids things at school

because they're

boring right yeah that's that that's

more of a mom's thing

i mean who wants to see any of those

little shows that these teachers put on

and

drag everybody up there and then you

know the last thing you want to do

the last one i went to which is why i

don't go anymore is they had this

pretend pta meeting and they tried to

tell us about all this stuff that was

going on i'm like

i'm just here to see my kid sing a song

on the stage and now you're gonna put me

through this

horrible crap i i don't want to do this

anymore

so i don't go anymore so shepard's kids

if you are listening to this podcast

would just like to say that it's not you

it's the production staff

the choreographers yes and who's ever

responsible for trying to drag

uh eight minutes entertainment out into

a three-hour event

right yeah so anyway thanksgiving this

year thanksgiving thank you

here we are thanksgiving 2020. here we

are

let's be thankful for 2020. yeah

november 26th

this year okay so mark that in your

calendars although if you've actually

bought a calendar which is from within

the united states it should actually

have

thanksgiving written in there so that

might be unnecessary yeah

true yeah so you mentioned it's like 400

years ago

yeah i mean remember remember that you

got plymouth rock right in

in the car plymouth rock plymouth rock

as 1620

so it is literally 400 years ago

when when the pilgrims showed up so so

here's the

400th anniversary but of course

you know thanksgiving didn't really

happen in 1620

but still almost 400 years ago yeah

well the first actual coming together of

the colonists the plymouth colonists

and the wampanoag native americans was

actually the year after 1621.

there you go and they shared an autumn

harvest feast

and you have to remember these plymouth

colonists were

passengers on the mayflower which i

believe you know a little bit about

uh that that's a trucking company in the

united states that helps you move

right that's all i know about the

mayflower

about half of your stuff might get

destroyed on the

yeah which is pretty much kind of like

the mayflower yeah it that

came over from england now you had some

people on there didn't you

yeah i did you know

i am not a direct descendant of john

billington all of the genealogy

that i have done uh that

i i'm i'm back before john billington's

time

i'm back in the 1400s with my line of

the billingtons

but i am related

to that same billington so

when i hear the stories of john

billington i realize you know that makes

a lot of sense

the way that our genetics and everything

have been

carried down with him because i probably

feel

the same way he felt when he came over

here and there

and look we could have a whole podcast

honestly on john billington

and how he got a raw deal

uh how there was even back 400 years ago

fake news where you could go to

plymouth massachusetts right now when

they still

treat the billingtons bad and everything

else

but you know what we laugh

about it at thanksgiving because if it

wasn't

for the billington family the pilgrims

wouldn't have lasted through the winter

but nobody wants to talk about that to

be fair he did murder somebody didn't he

yeah well they deserve it it happens

they obviously deserved it

but but you know it when i took my wife

up to plymouth massachusetts and showed

her

you know the the areas that you know the

pilgrims came over

and when i took her up there they were

restoring the mayflower to they they

rebuilt the ship

right and it was kind of a tourist trap

and and they have the plymouth colony

and they have all these

people that are these mayflower

descendants and

and they're just hoity-toity close to

elites and

all this junk but they hate the

billingtons

they they truly hate the billingtons and

even when i took her into a shop

and i said hey i'm i'm looking for some

information on a passenger

who i think is related to me and i said

my name is max billington

they they cringe just hearing the name

billington

and it's hilarious because if you look

at the history

the billingtons got the pilgrims

through thanksgiving but no one learns

that

what they learn is this story of squanto

and they learn the story of francis

billington

and and running away and doing all this

and

almost sinking the mayflower and all

that

because it was a fake news

it was yellow journalism it was

everything they could spin around to

make them look bad right now for

more than two centuries after that first

thanksgiving

celebration i guess you can call it

thanksgiving was celebrated yearly for

close to 200 years in various colonies

and states

but it wasn't until 1863 which is pretty

much smack bang i think right in the

middle of the civil war

that well it was just before a1 steak

sauce decided you know what

we're in the middle of a civil war but

you know what this country needs a good

steak sauce yeah so lincoln

actually then proclaimed a national

thanksgiving day to be held each

november now i was looking back at the

menu

for the first thanksgiving and it sounds

pretty good to me except for the last

thing in there

so there was lobster lobster yup

lobster is good i'm i'm with that yeah

uh seal

uh i can't say i've tried that no i

i i'm gonna have to disagree with you on

the seal i ha

i have never ate seal but i

don't want to some some people say you

can't beat a good seal but the

norwegians see all colors have a

difference of opinion on that fair

enough yeah

uh deer so i'm up for that oh i love

venison

venison's great yeah and uh lastly the

bastard of the

bird world swans swans swans wankers

yeah i'm okay with that i mean i'd

rather eat a swan than a turkey

really i mean they gotta they gotta

taste somewhere

i figure it might it might be a bit like

dark cause for many people who haven't

had dark

ducks lovely crispy dirk and dummy is

good

yeah it's different anyway so anyway

this feast lasted for like

three days so i can imagine it was uh

you know a bit a bit of a party but

today nearly 90 percent of american

families eat turkey on that sure

given so yeah it it it's always gonna

wait away from the seals and the swans

and

right which i would have thought you

know

might have been a little more amusing to

have at thanksgiving yeah but

it but who doesn't like to to eat a good

turkey

at thanksgiving yeah i mean you look at

the

[Music]

uh television program especially around

american football you know everybody's

talking about turkey it's the turkey

legs

you know that that turkey dish is always

that

centered around football and also

you know you have the white house that

pardons a turkey

every year so it's always centered

around turkey

but it's always also about how you cook

that turkey

yeah i think that turkey gets pardoned

for about two weeks

i don't think there's like a turtle oh i

i think you're giving in pleasantville

somewhere yeah i think you're getting

him too much it's like i'm gonna pardon

you and that turkey's like oh look at me

go and like okay are the cameras off

okay the cameras are up

okay let's slaughter that turkey yeah

yeah yeah let's go ahead and eat that

turkey

now i mean thanksgiving parades are

normally pretty popular in a lot of

uh states specifically in new york where

macy's parade but i think

governor hitler might shut that one down

well yeah well

you know what we could we could probably

do a whole podcast on parades and how

ridiculous they are now

but uh you know

here's the terrible thing about

thanksgiving with me

you know my family they they always want

to wake up and they want to

turn on the macy's thanksgiving day

parade i've never

liked it please i don't want to watch

this

i i've been smoking a turkey

most of the night to feed y'all and and

now that y'all got out of bed

now i have to watch this terrible crap

of

you know some high school band somewhere

that's going to play a song

or i'm going to have to watch some pop

music singer

lip sync to something terrible

i just i i hate seeing any of that and

then it's like

oh well santa claus is coming

you know an hour and a half from now oh

santa claus is going to come at the

end of this parade it's like okay well

it just

it sucks it it sucks

this is one of those things that we just

need to

do away with if if even if you enjoy it

yeah but we'll get rid of it yeah but it

but even if you look at the cove

thing because you know the thanksgiving

day parade is probably going to suck

even if they have it and of course we

haven't done our research but my guess

is

we're probably not going to have it it's

probably time to get rid of it

nobody cares no one really

cares about this parade well i figured

if they have some rioting and looting

kind of prior to the parade starting

they can then call it a mostly peaceful

thanksgiving parade and then it will be

allowed to go ahead yeah but

wouldn't it be fun to ride in loot right

in the middle of the parade and just

start attacking people in the parade

and and just see how they could defend

themselves like oh i've got a flute i

got a french horn i'm gonna smack you in

the head

you you know these little band geeks

that are 10th graders from some high

school

that all of a sudden they're they're

marching in this parade

and some random person comes up and

starts smacking them in the head

yeah maybe this is the time to get rid

of that parade

i mean it who cares about parades

anymore

yeah if um anybody's listening who

thinks the shepherd is serious about

that

he oh i'm totally saying he has been

watching a lot of futuristic

dystopian movies where the entertainment

is generally based around

fights to the death and uh stuff like

that and he's just trying to push it

forward a few

yeah he actually thought the purge was a

documentary so

i did until you explained to me that was

fictional yeah

but um actually there are there are

people who are complaining about

thanksgiving on a you know significant

basis i mean since 19

yeah since 1970 uh

yeah 1970 protesters um

gather on thanksgiving at the top of

coles hill

which overlooks plymouth rock okay and

they commemorate it as a national day of

mourning

so they go up there get all miserable

and then go home to the family and eat

turkey

yeah so that's pretty much it pretty

much i bet they don't

kind of like i doubt they feel so

strongly about it that they

you know eradicate themselves from the

thing well i'm sure they're hoping

some local network station shows up

to film them so they can make them and

then they can leave immediately yeah

and not say it's like hey look you know

we can't let this last more than about

30 minutes because we got the turkey in

the oven

we got to go check on this so can we go

ahead and film this

wrap this up you know to put on a good

show

because we still got to go eat our

thanksgiving dinner i doubt it's

actually a national day of morning it's

more like a national

two-hour window in the morning of

morning yeah yeah

exactly now it amazed me actually that

thanksgiving in its various

forms had existed around the world long

before it was here but then i really

but then i thought about it and thought

about you know all the pagan

celebrations and

you know the you know end of summer and

all this type stuff but maybe it's not

that unusual kind of

kind of the end of harvest

or whatever it is yeah well i mean the

separatists who came over on the

mayflower and the puritans who you know

came a little bit after

i mean they bought with them a lot of

feasting and celebration holidays which

you know is to thank god for the harvest

so i mean it did have its roots

you know it wasn't like when they were

sitting down with the native americans

there was kind of like what should we do

then oh and somebody come out with the

idea of let's have a feast i think

it's you know quite a common thing for

them to celebrate in the heart and

kind of ironic that you call them

separatists and

maybe that's how in england

y'all looked at it over here they were

always called the strangers

they were the strangers they they were

not part of the puritans they were not

part of the pilgrims they were the

strangers they

they were always looked at as this

bizarre sect of people that just kind of

hey everybody wants to come over here

but we don't have a full

ship so let's put some other people on

here

and they're looked at in the united

states

as strangers not separatists separatists

actually sounds a little bit nicer than

strangers well i can't get whenever i

hear that word

separatists i can't get the image of

those funny looking people in

the phantom menace first star wars movie

yeah well

yeah there was a lot of political stuff

in there

yeah absolutely federation it depended

on

how many gray hairs were in george

lucas's beard when i wrote that

yeah now also i mean in ancient times

the egyptians greeks and romans

uh feasted and paid tribute to their

gods after the full harvest so i mean

this has been

obviously a thing for thousands right of

years you know i mean

yeah yeah it's nothing new this was not

invented

it it was a it was a time to say hey

you know we've done good let's celebrate

the fact that we

did good we're we're all sitting around

we're still alive

you know we we didn't starve to death so

i guess that's something to be thankful

for

so nothing wrong with that yeah and i

mean historians did actually note that

the native americans

traditionally commemorated the full

harvest with feasting and merrymaking

you know long before the europeans came

over and basically ruined the crap

yeah i mean that that's um

white people problem yeah i mean i mean

we we

ruined that right i mean even canada had

its own

form of thanksgiving celebration about

40 years before

uh you know america had a hits its first

one

you know the germans even the germans

have one i think that's mainly drinking

a lot of beer

yeah yeah well it so was it in november

because i mean

oktoberfest is all about you know

sitting there and drinking beer in

october

so are the germans saying

well now november's here we're just

thankful

we're still alive we didn't kill

ourselves because we just drank

ourselves silly in october

yeah maybe well i mean it's called ante

dank fest which basically just means the

harvest festival

well that that's a typical word that we

all use in our daily languages i mean

that is

you know around the same time i guess

the end of the harvest but

but going even further i mean japan

has uh some type of festival called

kinro

kanshi no hi and i'm sure that is

such correct pronunciation well it's

authentic i've been using uh one of

those language learning apps

oh on the iphone yeah are you on the the

babble app

no no i think i'm using that one with an

owl on it i can't remember what it's

called

i speak like an owl in different

languages

is that dutch so anyway yeah they've got

that and it's basically called

labor thanksgiving day although it's

room

that the uh ever-growing robot

production lines want to cancel it

so because they still have to work on oh

here we go back with the robots

yeah they have to work on that day that

labor thanksgiving day those robots

don't get that day off

yeah that's terrible right you know we

we should support the robots a little

bit more yeah they're trying to

help us doing their best they are they

are they

there's there's only so much the robots

can do yeah let's be honest

let's not hurt the robots right i mean

we we need to support robot rights

yeah yeah especially robots who don't

know whether they're

androids or cyborgs yeah if they're in

that kind of like

we don't i don't know what i don't know

what word to use maybe trans

is that switch between the cyborgs we

don't want to confuse the robots because

we don't want them going to meetings

trying to figure out what kind of robot

they are

right we need them to self-identify well

if it's

well if you've got a robot whose main

job is supposed to be i don't know maybe

put in windshield wipers on a car

okay i don't want it self-identifying as

a burger flipper for a fast food

restaurant because that's

just you know what maybe that robot

wants to

simplify its life and said you know if

there's too much pressure of putting the

windshield wipers on

cars because what if those windshield

wipers

don't work correctly and i kill a family

but if i flip a burger wrong

it's going to be okay that's a lot of

pressure to put on the robot maybe

i'm also thinking that when you're

working for a minimum wage of zero

it's uh that is a lot of time to sit

around and kind of contemplate whether

you there might be about me

i mean can you imagine a a robot sitting

there

having a podcast trying to talk through

this stuff

i mean it's got to be a rough life being

a robot yeah now what are you thankful

for this year rather than the murder

warnings

honestly i'm thankful for mantis shrimps

yeah i i love manta shrimps i'm still

i'm i'm still trying to figure out a way

to

to create a fish tank in my house that

is full of nothing but manta shrimps and

i want to sit in front of that

fish tank and watch the manta shrimps

just

be manta shrimps i want to talk to them

i'm going to say hey

what's it like to be a manta shrimp i i

would really like to be a manta shrimp

you have all the power in the universe

you can change global warming

you are so powerful that

that is what i'm thankful for yeah and

i'm i'm thankful for

the nfc east this year with the dallas

cowboys

that the dallas cowboys that have a two

and

seven record i think is what it is and

they're still

close to being able to be in the

playoffs

i i'm thankful for the fact that

i can walk around in the great state of

texas

and we're not afraid of the rona and

even though we've talked about a vaccine

and everything else

i still get to do what i want to do when

i still have

liberties and freedoms and

that's pretty much it yeah going back to

the mantis shrimp uh to our listeners

this is once again

a good reason why you shouldn't sit down

and drink a lot of beer and watch

spongebob squarepants

true yeah because again we thought part

of it along with that

octonauts episode was almost like a

documentary

yeah yeah it it very much was well

according to um

one of them well well now wait you asked

me what i'm thankful for

here in 2012 what but what are you

thankful for in 2012

um i'm i'm throwing you a curveball now

what are you thankful for in 2020

yeah no that that sucks right yeah

that sucks you know you hit me with that

one and i

i had to try to the xbox series x is

coming out that's what's in here

yeah but you know what you and i talked

about that before

off the air and we all we already

decided we're

not going to pre-order we're not going

to get it right it at the same time so

so no no you got to do something better

than that

what what are you thankful for

in 2020 uh we finally got rid of the cat

yeah but the cat died no the cat's still

alive and kicking but now lives like in

dallas somewhere

we're talking about konami right no not

that one

oh the one who lived in the house oh

that one who used to play too many cats

it's so hard to keep track of cats i

mean you realize

there's my family then there's

random spiders that walk around the

house

and then somewhere below that is cats

so that's how much i care about the cats

some cats we loved konami yes

yes we miss konami rest in peace konami

but you've got to say hello okay so

so you you gotta have something else

you gotta have something else that

you're thankful for in

uh we got rid of hulu and switched to

peacock

okay better better programs to watch for

less money and no

well yeah there are a lot of adverts

still but i like that

um got a new phone

okay um

yeah it's pr yeah that that that pretty

much sums up

2020. that round yeah it not much to be

thankful for

i mean we're we're barely alive and we

have a podcast and that's pretty much it

yeah i'm thankful for the podcast

it's i don't know what gives it gives us

something else to kind of

concentrate on because you make me feel

so dumb

on the podcast i don't know if i'm

thankful for it

well it's not like i ask you questions

you've got no chance of guessing but on

that note

if i did what percentage

corona transmissions do you think take

place in the home

in the home okay so so we're talking

about family members right

uh i don't know what visitors you might

have um

i don't know i mean it should be family

members in the home but

but okay so i'm gonna

guess somewhere 33

70 ah here we go again i can't remember

which one of the bs

organizations whether it's the who or

cdc said it but they say it takes place

in the whole

so

is this your transylvanian hal

yeah you've got to be careful with owls

yeah so anyways um there's literally

some state governors and mayors from the

usual

places that are basically trying to

cancel thanksgiving

you know pretty much my canceled

thanksgiving how

how are they gonna cancel thanksgiving

what what are they gonna

do to cancel thanksgiving well

if they can if they can't cancel it

they're gonna make it about as much fun

as the zoom life video of a

zoom live feed of auntie nora's

hysterectomy because

the tips include no singing which no

singing which shouldn't hurt

okay so many families i don't know any

families actually seeing it so

so i will agree with that rule

especially with the podcast because

you try to sing all the time so i'm

gonna say

i agree with the no singing it you know

you you like to sing

so i'm in agreement with that

not a bad rule well i'm still going to

call you and sing over zooms and mm-hmm

oh sit at separate tables that's the

next bit of advice which should please a

lot of people

sit at separate tables okay so so

if i'm following you you're going to

thanksgiving dinner and let's let's use

uh eight people right so eight people

are at thanksgiving dinner sitting at

separate tables

i think i kind of like that you know i'm

sitting at my own table

you know what i'm i'm gonna drag my

table into the living room

and watch football yeah

that's what i've always wanted to do you

know i

i don't want to sit at the table and try

to lean my head around

trying to listen to what's going on with

the football game

so okay so far

i'm two for two right the new rules with

thanksgiving well i wonder if they're

going to expand it till you have to sit

in separate rooms because that could be

oh that might that might be nice though

hey

pass the gravy no yeah

yeah but but once again it so far

i i'm good with this reduced gatherings

to no more than eight people which is

going to be difficult for you because

you've got uui from four kids yeah i

mean we're gonna have people now you can

have your dad and that's it

so uh i don't know

i'm i'm i'm kind of liking these new

rules

you know i i don't have to put up with

anybody else i don't have to

smoke a turkey for anybody else it might

be

kind of nice to just feed my family and

ignore everybody else so i'm sitting at

my

private little table watching the

football game

okay so so you're not changing my mind

on this

so uh wear a mask in between oh okay

oh they're they're okay

yeah so so you were saving that no i'm

not gonna wear a mask

i'm sorry not gonna do that i'm not an

anti-master

you know if you want to wear a mask and

i you know i have to wear a mask

whenever i walk into a store

all that's fine but you know what

i'm not wearing a mask in my own house

around my own family

no it okay so we finally found the

divide

well well well actually um again hitler

sorry um governor

cumio of new york advised that all

family gatherings including

thanksgiving and christmas shouldn't

even take place

hmm wants to cancel thanksgiving and

christmas yeah

uh depending on how

terrible your family is maybe there's

something to that

but if your family's that terrible then

you ought to

kind of take a close look at your life

well i mean if you're keeping gatherings

down to eight

you can obviously exclude the ones who

you don't really like that much

for one but also true i also thought

that the best thing about

if they do ban thanksgiving in person

and you have to do it like over zoom and

stuff is

not having to smell your grandparents

farts while watching the football

yeah but can you imagine you know your

your parents if you're

you know of a certain age like you and i

or if you're younger if you're a

teenager

early 20s your grandparents trying to

explain to them

zoom and

[Music]

the fact that the hey hey grandpa

grandpa you're on mute you're on mute

put some noise on grandpa

yeah yeah yeah you you've gotta you've

gotta click this

yeah uh uh no uh uncle tom

uh please please stop doing that we can

see you on the video and this is really

inappropriate

that what you are doing on this video no

you shouldn't do this stop stop looking

at

your other monitor if the video you're

watching

this is totally inappropriate for

thanksgiving we

we should not be doing this i i can see

all that going on

i don't know if you've got a relative

like that maybe you should ban them from

maybe i am the relative that does this

let's be honest maybe you're the

relative that does this as well

you know so so as as an english person

looking at the fact that you know

thanksgiving

is this celebration when you had the

the puritans and you had the strangers

they came over

there they're fleeing the horrible

aspects of

england when you were

living over there and you knew that

americans were celebrating thanksgiving

and you're sitting over

it over there in england knowing you

don't have a thanksgiving

what what did you think about

thanksgiving

while we're celebrating this we we take

a day off and

and then you know the day after

thanksgiving we take that off

how did the english think about

thanksgiving well firstly we would never

talk about thanksgiving in schools

anyway so we didn't sure about it

the only way we you

but you did know that the americans were

over here

celebrating through stuff like charlie

brown and that

kind of stuff but you know i mean we

don't generally have quite as much to be

thankful for in england so i mean

it it thanksgiving it wouldn't be

thanksgiving day it mainly

like be a period between 12 30 and 1 p.m

um but no i mean it wasn't something we

kind of missed because we have our own

celebrations over there which you know a

little bit different and

i guess you just get used to you know

what

what's normal in that respect and so you

know i do like the idea of thanksgiving

i have enjoyed all my thanksgiving

you know uh occasions mostly since i've

been over here

um but yeah it wasn't something we

really thought about that much uh

in fact until you had the you know

normal movies and cartoons came out

we never thought about it until they

suddenly appeared on tv and thought oh

it must be thanksgiving in

you know united st but over in england

did you

ever you know in

history or whatever was there ever

something said about

the quote-unquote pilgrims that hopped

on the mayflower

and came over here or was that just

ignored no i was ignored yeah yeah you

just

me it makes sense you just turned up

here somehow and that was it i think yes

that's about the legitimate coverage the

whole event got

you turned up here and formed a country

and that's i think that's probably now

that's actually probably more knowledge

than they actually give you in school

about wow

the founding of a nation you know yeah

well of course

it you know that could be argued it's

it's not necessarily the pilgrims that

founded the nation and all that but it's

kind of a surprise

because that that's such a big

aspect of american culture

thanksgiving you know that there's

always the stories

you put the the little black hat

on your head with the buckle on the

front that the puritans supposedly wore

and a few witches yeah and now we proved

that that's not actually how they

dressed and

and all that crazy stuff

and you know the indians or the native

americans

to be politically correct uh said hey

you know we don't want you to starve and

we're gonna have this big

feast and all that stuff and

now it's more turned into like you said

before the

macy's thanksgiving day parade it's

uh the detroit lions and the dallas

cowboys playing a football game

we're gonna smoke a turkey we're we're

gonna do this

and then let's be honest most people

don't even really care that much about

thanksgiving

they care more about black friday

they care about what stores are going to

be open

where can we rush in there and and

and exercise our rights as

americans to try to find those great

deals for christmas

and just maul over people and say

i want to get that 299 dollar

big tv and i'm gonna knock you out

just so i can go into walmart and get

this tv

and that's now what we look at with

thanksgiving

yeah my wife will look at the black

friday deals like uh

well maybe i should go to target maybe i

should go to walmart maybe i should go

do this

you know one of the kids wants this for

christmas

so if i go there at midnight i can run

in there and get this great deal

i think that's where thanksgiving has

went to now

it's more of a shopping day it's it's

like

let's go ahead and eat a bunch of turkey

let

let let's eat kind of halfway good

home-cooked meal so we've got that

energy

we got that protein running through our

system so we can

run out to a store and run over

everybody

to try to get a good deal for christmas

yeah i mean that's

actually more of a reason to kind of

overeat so you have enough energy to

kick somebody in the face to steal the

last cheat

tv from walmart yeah

i mean that let's be honest that's where

it is

so with that we're going to shut this

one down

and we truly appreciate all of you all

supporting us hope you all have a happy

thanksgiving

and we'll see on the next one