Thanksgiving: Free From Want

Ah yes, the annual Thanksgiving blog post.    But what to write about????

Pilgrims?

Nah.

My favorite pumpkin pie recipe?

Don’t even like the stuff.

The history of turkeys?

Would anyone care?

No, they wouldn’t, but they might give a damn about an iconic painting that seems to sum up the holiday for Americans–providing you’re white, middle class and still in a nuclear family that can celebrate one afternoon of festive togetherness without several table clearing brawls, death threats, fisticuffs, three assaults,  fire alarms and several  frantic calls both to AND from 9-1-1.

See the painting?   Nice warm fuzzy generator, is it not?   It depicts a perfect Thanksgiving day;  one dipped in familial love and warm sunlight;  highlighted in joy riddled togetherness and abundance.  It’s called, appropriately enough  Freedom From Want  and it’s the handiwork of famed American artist Norman Rockwell.   It was first published in the Saturday Evening Post in March of 1943.

Freedom From Want was one in a series of paintings that Norman Rockwell created after being inspired by a speech given by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It should also be noted that this painting was created during World War II, a time when our freedoms and families were perhaps more acutely appreciated.

 

So yeah, it is a nice painting.  It tugs at the heartstrings, right?    And like the The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, Freedom From Want is one of the most parodied paintings in history.   I donned my pithe helmet and dug around  the wide world of webs in order to find a few and since you’ve been such good boys and girls and asked the Great Turkey to outfit you with copious amounts of  ’hoot’  under your Thanksgiving trees festooned with leftovers,  you get to see the fruits of my computer spelunking. 

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Here you go: 

THANKSGIVING AT STAN LEE’S HOUSE

 

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THANKSGIVING GREETINGS FROM GOTHAM CITY 

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HAPPY OVERSIZED THANKSGIVING FROM THE JACOB’S HOIST AND LIFT

   

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GREETINGS FROM FEDERAL PRISON. 

I SEE FELONS.  

IS THAT MARK STANFORD AND BERNIE MADOFF????

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FROM SPRINGFIELD:  HERE’S HOPING THAT YOU DON’T FIND ANY STRAY BLUE HAIRS IN YOUR THANKSGIVING GRUB

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A ZOMBIE THANKSGIVING–THE  ONLY  TIME WHEN AN ENCEPHALITIC BRAIN  CAN BE A VERY GOOD THING

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AND FINALLY,  HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE WALLER FAMILY. 

THEY SEND THEIR WHITE TRASH BEST WISHES FROM THIER DOUBLE WIDE PARKED ATOP THREE CINDER BLOCKS AND ONE RUSTY CAR JACK  THAT’S STARTING TO LEAN, IN A LITTER STREWN, OVERGROWN  LOT AT THE FREEBIRD TRAILER PARK IN THAT WELL KNOWN HOUSTON BLUE COLLAR SUBURB, PASACHANNADENAPORT. 

In closing, Thanksgiving is the holiday for consumption in the literal sense;  mass consumption in fact and it’s damned near compulsory and as American as the apple pie you’ll feast upon.   This is the one holiday when diets are supposed to fall by the wayside and gluttony becomes a patriotic duty.  Do it with gusto, Nation!!!

Eat well.

…………. ………………………………………………………………………………..,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.Burp often.    

;……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Happy Thanjks

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