New England Thanksgiving

God Charlie,

You think Massachusetts taxes are bad. Wait until you pay Maine taxes. They tax everything that moves and does not move. My former Ssiter-in-law still drives to New Hampshire to buy clothes, and anything she may need.

But it is still a great state.

Fred
 
Yes, I know. I'm paying them now. Hard to pass up a view like this though.... This is from our deck in winter when most of little Kennebec Bay was frozen over. Haze is "sea smoke"....

DSCN1386.jpg

Charlie
 
lCharlie-I don't know much about Maine Once I was driving to the Maine Maritime College (I think it's in Castine) to meet up with a kid my son went to high school with. The young man's last name is Sewell, from an old Maine seafaring family. I'll have to ask Joe what ever became of him. Anyway, I remember being in the middle of nowhere and seeing a hand drawn sign stuck in a tree. It said something like "You're really not lost, you're almost there." Also happy to see a "Platz Hall" at the Academy . They had an old AK as a training ship.
PS -beautiful picture!
 
ffheap":3s4hgq1g said:
Hi Folks,

Sorry to disturb anybody, but Philbrook is a great historian. He was the one who wrote the book on the Essex. He is not a BS,er.

I only wanted to present another view about the Pilgrims. Every year, on the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Plymouth, they have to call out extra Cops, because the Indians arrive and tell their side of the story, and the others don't like it. As one Indian said, "If the people don't like the truth, that is their problem."

Philbrook's interest is the truth. He did not just tell a story, he documented every thing from original sources and letters. He did not set out to disturb anybody, he set out to tell the historical truth about the Pilgrims. As I said, I was disturbed because everything I was led to believe was disputed by Philbrook. It bothered me, and everybody else who I know read the book.

As for Santa Claus, "yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

Fred
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Fred,

Finished reading Mayflower a few weeks ago. Must say, the book is extremely well written and beyond his accounts of mans inhumanity to man its a pleasure to read. Also as you said and I agree, the book is historically accurate. Unlike you, even as a youngster I never accepted completely my early teachings of history. I guess maybe Santa ruined that. Maybe that is why history and exploring are my two favorite interest in life among the many. To find or at least try to find the truth in history you have to search and explore through the written records just like exploring the far distant lonely places to see whats really there.

What surprised me the most in Philbrooks's account is just how well the Indians and Pilgrims did get along during the first 50 years of there relationship. It really wasn't untill the next generation of Pilgrims and Indians that things really came apart. And where Miles Standish certainly had his faults I think you're a little hard on him. I believe and what Philbrook wrote sustains, without him instead of half the pilgrims dieing the first year all would have perished.

I believe you and I would agree to disagree over our different interpretations of many parts of this book and its account of this country's first Thanksgiving, but I think we would both wholeheartedly recommend it for others to read and make up there own minds.

Like I said before, I am and as far back as I can remember always been interested in history. Have read many hundreds of books on the conflict between the American Indian and the European encroachment on them. And if I have any bias and its likely I do, its because of my own Scots-Irish heritage. If you don't know the history of the Scots-Irish and from you're being disturbed by Plilbrook's account of the Mayflower, I kinda doubt you do, you might do a little reading of there trials and tribulations. Also why they were pretty much always in the forefront of the Europeans and later United States advancement from east to west over the Indian lands. With your big heart and I really believe that, you'd probably end of being very disterbed by what they had to live through, generation after generation.

Jay
 
Based on Fred's recommendation, I too read 1492, and was pleased with it. Like Jay, I was impressed with the practical cooperation in the first generation and later debacles by pompous leaders. Got a kick out of the account of bestiality and the punishment, and the fact that a Mastiff came over on the Mayflower.

As to recorded history accuracy, read "Shadow Divers". It's a good tale of some recreational divers finding a U-boat off NJ, and the difficulty in identifying it.

Rick from Maine
 
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