Have you ever thought about what Thanksgiving means? Well, I have. Not that I think about it very often, but I was thinking about it today.

Although my history is a bit foggy and getting foggier with each year that passes, I seem to recall that this is the day when we acknowledge the Pilgrims, those staunch-hearted individuals who crossed the ocean from Europe back in  . . . well, some year a long, long time ago . . . and landed on the Eastern shores of what would someday become the United States of America. We acknowledge the Pilgrims because without them we never would have had Thanksgiving in the first place.

See, after crossing that wide expanse of water, a trip during which many travelers got really, really seasick, the Pilgrims, specifically those who landed at Plymouth Rock (That’s somewhere in New England, although it wasn’t yet called New England) prepared a sumptuous repast of turkey, dressing, giblet gravy, cranberries, yams, collards, and pumpkin pie; then they shared their feast with the Native Americans of the area (Not that the indigenous people were yet called Native Americans). And since these people-who-would-someday-be-known-as-Native Americans grew and harvested what they called maize (It later became known as “corn”), they contributed “maize-on-the-cob” to the buffet table. Then again, the Native Americans probably also tossed in a deer or two, along with some wild nuts. (I doubt the nuts were in a pie because I don’t think the Native Americans had pie tins. Then again, maybe they did.) Anyway, nuts aside, thanks (key word here) to the Pilgrims and the people-who-would-someday-be-known-as-Native Americans, on this, the last Thursday in November, we get to stuff ourselves until our eyeballs threaten to pop out of our heads; watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, endless football games, and reruns of Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving; curl up on the sofa and take a long nap; then eat some more before we again pass out, albeit this time on the bed. But that’s not all. Besides stuffing ourselves on this special Thursday of the year, we also get to crawl out of bed early the next morning, slug down a cup of coffee, rush out the door, drive through horrendous bumper-to-bumper traffic, park two miles away from the mall entrance, walk those two miles, and then fight shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of frazzled shoppers in order to begin our Christmas shopping on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year.

And that’s what Thanksgiving means.