Wheels: The Thanksgiving story of Plymouth

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. What’s not to like? It centers on food and family — which includes those close but not necessarily related — bringing people together around the table for a feast that doesn’t involve religion or politics or controversial messages. Well, unless you consider that the Pilgrims came to this land to avoid religious persecution and the entire holiday is predicated on the idea that the indigenous people of this region reached out to help these new settlers which ultimately spawned a brave new world and was the genesis for the holiday of which I speak.

Back in the 1600s, the Pilgrims arrived by ship. Boarding the rather flimsy Mayflower, a small (by today’s standards) square-rig sailing vessel, they literally threw fate to the wind and landed, as history taught us, on the shores of Plymouth, Mass. Perhaps the large rock at that location bearing the engraved date 1620 isn’t the actual rock onto which the Pilgrims set foot, but it’s symbolic of the feat.