WEBVTT - Thanksgiving Fiction Special: The Thirty-Seven Marble Steps 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.320 Chloe, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:07.640 which is normally a show where I your host, Margaret Giltroy, 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:09.840 talked to you about cool people in history. But this 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:14.960 week it's a very special holiday week. Everyone loves Thanksgiving. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:16.840 There's a lot a terrible history of Thanksgiving that we're 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:18.640 going to get into in a little bit. This week 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:19.919 will be a little bit different. We're going to do 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:22.520 a short little bit of history, and then we're gonna 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.120 do a little bit of fiction, because I think that's 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.280 what I do when I don't have an entire episode, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.000 is I read you short stories because I write short stories, 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.960 and so then I can read them because I've written them. Today. 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.600 My guest is very excited to be on the show, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.320 has never been on the show before. Is Sophie Lichtman. Sophie, 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.400 how are you? I'm good? I think you fiction because 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.760 they ask you too, because I like it? Oh right? 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:54.800 Is something. It has nothing to do with you know, 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:59.160 not having time or anything like that. It's that I'm like, hey, 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:01.680 can you do this thing that you're really good at 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:07.000 that I enjoy that listeners also enjoy. Thanks. Yeah, okay, 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.400 that that's what I'm doing. Very thankful for that, because it's, 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.040 you know, a week of thanking for things thanks by 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:18.200 I mean, let's talk about this really awesome, awesome thing. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.399 I can't even be serious about it. No, it's hard, 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.920 and unfortunately I finally get to go back to my 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.600 roots of how I earned the name Killjoy, which was 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.840 not by telling people about cool people, but instead by 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:36.240 complaining about things that people hold dear. I was so excited, Hooray, 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.280 we're gonna talk about Thanksgiving. The story of Thanksgiving is 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.759 a lie on almost every conceivable level. The idea didn't 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:47.240 originate in North America. The first American Thanksgiving feast wasn't 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:51.800 the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock In The colonists weren't actually 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.760 very good to the indigenous people, even the specific nation 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.760 that they made the treaty with. That the whole Thanksgiving 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.880 myth is built around, and the current incarnation of thanks 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:02.280 you mean isn't even directly related to the feast that 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:06.120 they had in Plymouth rock YEP. One of the first 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.920 days of Thanksgiving was in sixteen thirty eight English settlers 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:12.840 on a ship named Margaret. I literally included this part 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.360 in the script because the ship was named Margaret, I 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:20.000 mean respectfully and understand. Yeah, they showed up in Virginia 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.799 and declared December four, six nineteen a day of Thanksgiving, 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.680 and it was part of this Puritan idea. The idea 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.080 of Thanksgiving wasn't like something that they came up with 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:33.760 once they were in North America. Puritans um famously not 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:39.320 fans of fun, and so they didn't or paganism, and 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.480 they correctly assessed that all the Christian holidays were just 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.160 pagan holidays rebranded, and so they only had two holidays 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.400 that really mattered to them. Days of Humiliation and Days 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:55.320 of Thanksgiving. I mean that sounds like, you know, an 0:02:55.360 --> 0:03:04.400 average Wednesday for me. But okay, yeah, yeah, for some reason, 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.040 the Puritans and well, I guess I would say, you know, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.960 Protestant culture in American in general has forgotten about the 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.519 first one. Not as big on the Days of Humiliation 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.040 should be you know, a weekly day, you know, for 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:20.080 at least for like Congress in America or something. Yeah, 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.600 it should be a day of humiliation each week. They 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:30.160 just get to, you know, make fun of some horrendous politician. Yeah. 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.160 I think I didn't look a ton into it. I 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:37.240 think it's like to humble ourselves to express humility. You know, 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.840 I like my aversion better where you you take like 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.880 Mitch McConnell from Senate and I'll let let you know, 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.440 somebody from Congress throw things at them. Is either one 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:55.080 it looks like a turtle. I can't remember. Yes, yes, yeah, 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.040 Like I'm like, as a matter of fact, if we're 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.240 being you know, factually accurate, he is, Yeah, okay, just 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:01.680 just checking making sure I have the right one in 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:06.800 my head. The Thanksgiving in colonial America that we mythologized today, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.360 it is two years later from the set Margaret Once. 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:14.920 You've probably heard this story before. Have you heard of 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:20.520 these people, the Pilgrims, Sophie? I was fortunately for way 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.760 too long every I mean just an unbelievable amount of 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:30.400 time in class in school. Unbelievable. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:32.120 But did you know that they didn't actually set out 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:37.000 from England? They set out from the Netherlands. No, I mean, 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.280 like they taught this in school. I realized it was 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:42.760 not a real story. And then I was like, I 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.839 will not fact check this because funck them Like yeah, no, ya, totally, 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.360 many of them, many of the Puritans did set out 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.719 from from England. But this other group, the separatist Puritans, 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.200 who are the ones who get called the Pilgrims, set 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.360 out from the Netherlands because they had already fled England 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.120 and gone to and then Vilens, and then they continued 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.600 on their way and then they came over here. And 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.800 so those plucky Puritans, the Pilgrims, who would fucking hate 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.360 this is the best part about it all. The Puritans 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.360 would hate that Thanksgiving Thanksgiving as a harvest feast, Like 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.120 fundamentally it's a harvest feasts. It's a little bit weird. 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.120 That's a harvest feast. Every other culture celebrates harvest feast 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.320 around the time of the harvest, but we can't do 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:24.440 anything right, so our harvest feast is at the end 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:31.280 of November. But anyway, the Puritans fucking hate all pagan holidays, 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:34.200 so they would fucking hate that their day of Thanksgiving 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:40.599 is a fucking pagan harvest feast. Cool. So they show 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.160 up on the Mayflower and they found Plymouth and they 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.440 had a hard winter. They were like, I guess we'll 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:49.920 just die. I mean, honestly, here's I'm just going back 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.000 for one second. If they had named that ship Margaret, 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.920 maybe we would like them more. Maybe we like them more, 0:05:58.040 --> 0:05:59.960 that's true. Or maybe I would have had to pick 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.960 a different name out of that. Maybe maybe you would 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:09.520 not be Margaret because you'd associated with that. Or May, Yeah, 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.680 you'd be May, You'd be Mayflower Killjoy. Yeah, Okay, not 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:15.960 not a bad name. I'm not gonna lie like it. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.760 Kind of is a bob, I know, I know what. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:23.600 It's too steeped in the afromathic. I know. Wow, life 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:29.159 could be different, I know, I know. Fortunately, according to this, 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.440 this myth that we all hear, the heroic indigenous people 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:36.159 of a nearby nation, the Wampanoag, plus a plucky fellow 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.640 name to Squantum, whom history remembers by the nickname a 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.600 white guy gave him Squanto, who was the last surviving 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.320 member of the patux At people, who are a subsection 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.960 of the Wampanoag. And they show up, especially this guy 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.520 to Squantum, and he's like, hey, buds, here's some food 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.640 and here's some knowledge. It's all going to be okay. 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:55.560 And he teaches them the basics of how not to 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.320 die in North America, Like here's how to get maple sap, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.840 how to grow corn, how to catch eel. It's funny 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:02.840 because like the first things you read are like taught 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:04.400 them how to catch fish, and then you read a 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:05.760 little bit more into it, it's like taught them how 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:07.479 to catch eels. And I think people were like grossed 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:09.600 out by the fact that people used to eat a 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:17.560 ton of eels, and so like that Robert Evans, big 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:22.240 big eel guy, big guy. Don't they like not know 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.800 how eels reproduce? Even still, I have not looked into this, 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:33.480 but would not be surprised. There's a whole um historian. 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.920 Sophie's good to continue with the story, so people pop 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.200 back in. Okay, great, And you should also google medieval 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.960 eel historian and come up with this guy's name, because 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.960 apparently people used to pay their taxes in medieval England 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.760 with eels um and pay their rent with eels, and 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.800 there was just this whole eel based system in medieval 0:07:55.840 --> 0:08:00.640 England that no one john why probably I don't know, 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.560 I don't remember names. Well, everyone should look up medieval 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.280 evil history and listen to podcasts about it because they're 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:13.360 very entertaining. But even despite all this help, half of 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.560 the pilgrims died that winner, so critical support for winter 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.360 for killing half the Pilgrims. If it had killed all 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.640 of them, maybe the world would be a better place. 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.320 I'm not a big This is going to come across 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.560 a little bit. I actually the heroes of the story 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:34.360 are not the Pilgrims. I know, isn't that weird? So 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.920 according to this story, next year, next harvest, the Pilgrims 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.040 were like, yeah, let's have a day of Thanksgiving, which 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.079 is definitely not a pagan holiday, and we'll invite the 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.600 indigenous people with whom we will be great friends and 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.720 totally not try to wipe out. Except they didn't actually 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.880 call it a day of Thanksgiving back then. That just 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.800 like randomly, even though they would have called it a 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.719 day of Thanksgiving, they probably didn't. The reason that to 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.880 Squantum was the surviving member of his people is because 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.800 he had been enslaved by an English guy about seven 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:11.120 years earlier. Basically this English quote explorer. It's so fucked up, 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:12.439 like all these things are like, oh, we're off to 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.840 go explore. But if you read all these explorers were like, look, 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.320 we're just we're here to capture people. That's what we're doing. 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.600 And so this guy was like, hey, come on, board 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.559 my ship and we can trade. And twenty folks came 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.000 onto the ship, and then he kidnapped them and he 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.640 took them to Spain and never go on their ships, No, 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.240 just went on. Once he was sold into slavery in Spain, 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.280 he somehow escaped to London. He became a shipbuilder for 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.640 a while, or maybe apprentice with a shipbuilder, and then 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.160 eventually he was like, hey, I got an idea, we 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.000 should go back to North America and I know a 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.240 good spot. Specifically it was the spot he was from 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.960 because he wanted to get the funk home. And when 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:55.839 he got home, literally everyone was dead from disease, and 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.200 so and the Wampanoag. Within a generation of this whole 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.040 like peace, love and happiness, Thanksgiving thing, the Pilgrims were 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.040 breaking their treaties with them left and right. They were 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.800 hanging the Wampanoag for bullshit crimes. They were stealing their food, 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.520 they were demanding that they weren't allowed to go own guns. 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.200 The whole history of gun control goes real far back 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:20.240 with racism in this country. And they try to force 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.120 them all to become Christian, all this ship and they 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.719 leave them with no choice but go to war. It's 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.480 called King Philip's War, the First Indian War, And that's 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:30.560 not what we have time to go into today because 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:32.559 this is literally just a section of me talking it 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.960 on Thanksgiving. But but yeah, so these the people that 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.200 they were like supposedly friendly with or whatever, within a 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.160 generation those people were like, fuck, you're trying to kill 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.760 us all and had to go to war against the colonists. 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.720 It also wasn't the first American Thanksgiving by a long shot. 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.440 Some Spanish conquerors had done one consciously in fifteen sixty five. 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.160 The Virginia the Margaret people had done one a couple 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:00.040 of years earlier. It's not the actual story, but in 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.959 the actual Thanksgiving we currently celebrate. Of course, a ton 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.440 of indigenous people in North America had tons of harvest festivals, 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.840 as did fucking everybody on the planet except the Puritans, 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.920 who hated fun. So once again, the only joy I 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:14.920 can squeeze out of the story is the fact that 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:17.000 the Puritans would be really upset about all of this. 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.160 Do you want to know how how eels reproduce? Oh? 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.320 Is it known? How do eels reproduce? I know it 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.559 was waiting. I was waiting to give you this information 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.640 when you were going through there's nothing good here. Well, 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:32.360 this is how eels reproduce. For example, it is known 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.240 that eels produce eggs. It is believed that eels reproduced 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:41.080 through what is called external fertilization. This means that mating 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.040 using sexual organs, females release eggs. Males then released sperm 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.080 into the water, which then mixes with and fertilizes the eggs. 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.520 So they don't actually like like, they reproduce, but they 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.880 don't funk, is what I'm saying. I mean, you know, 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:59.520 I don't know. I met some male eels. That seems fair. Word. 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:04.040 I've actually never met a mail that implies of whatever. Anyway, 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:10.559 I guess who would be sponsoring this anti Thanksgiving episode today? Huh? 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.920 The concept of a national day of mourning reflecting the 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:19.960 fact that we're on stolen ground. Word, let's do it. 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:22.560 I don't know why I've said words seven times this episode, 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:24.920 but here we are all right, and then you know 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:32.680 who else? Has some words from our sponsors, and we 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:37.720 are back. And the first federally recognized Thanksgiving holiday was 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.040 made by Have you ever heard of this guy? He's 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.400 mostly famous for being a slaver um George Washington, that 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:48.360 the one with the with the wooden teeth guy. Well, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:52.640 we're going to talk about his teeth. Cool. Cool. He 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.439 called for the you know, the American revolution all that ship. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.959 He called for the first federal official federal day of Thanksgiving. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:01.600 There have been a couple that churches had been doing 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:03.920 and stuff before then, and it was to give thanks 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.600 for winning the Revolutionary War. If you want to hear 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:08.800 my opinions about that war, you can listen to the 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:14.360 episode about Public Universal Front. Except first I want to 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.800 talk a little bit more about George Washington. Wait. Wait, 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:20.640 I swear, I swear on everything. I did not read 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.160 ahead and see that you had a whole thing about teeth. 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.440 That's just the first thing that came to my mind. Yeah, 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.160 we're talking about George Washington's teeth. This is very exciting. 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.959 George piece of ship Washington who statues should be treated 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.240 exactly the same way as any Confederate statue. Have you 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:45.560 heard about George Washington's teeth? Apparently? Oh man, so I 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:47.960 was about to say that Mr one dollar Bill himself, 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:52.120 And the next baragraph starts on the one dollar bill, ye, yep, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.480 on the one dollar bill. George Washington has a smug, 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.120 little smile, and it's because his cheeks are a little 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.640 bit puffed up because he's wearing dentures. And in school 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:03.600 they told us his dentures were made out of wood. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.520 That isn't true, of course it isn't. Why would they ever, 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.800 why would they ever tell us anything true about these 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:15.319 despicable fucking people that found it out? I know, because 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.520 then we can have complicated conversations about them. I'm not 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.560 gonna have a complicated conversation about him. I'm gonna have 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.800 a one sided conversation about him today. But it's like 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.280 you could theoretically eventually have complicated conversations about some of 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.440 these people if you started with the fucking truth. But 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:29.240 we're gonna start with the truth, and we're gonna leave 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.080 it there. He had a bunch of different dentures, but 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.960 one of his sources for teeth was that he bought, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.720 and the word bought gets really heavy air quotes here. 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.240 He bought teeth from the people that he enslaved. He 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.160 his estate had over three hundred enslaved people on it, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.800 more than a hundred personally owned by George w himself. 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.360 And it was these people that he got his dentures 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:58.400 from while they were still alive. Jesus fuck and yeah, 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.080 and during the revel susan a whole grip of the 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.000 people that he thought he owned, ran the funk away 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.160 and got into a British warship and escaped the fucking 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.080 monster they lived with. Anyway, I feel like it's just 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.240 hard to say the words George Washington a sentence without 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.960 adding the guy who ripped teeth out of living people's faces. 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:16.320 And in our in our country, he's the delightful, delightful 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:21.160 foundery with the cute little wooden teeth. I know that 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:27.040 we tell that story to, you know, preschool children. Yeah, 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:32.040 he's a he's a horror villain's he's absolutely horrible, like 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:38.280 a yeah, Jesus Christ. Yeah uh. I mean like that 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.480 should be talked about in the same like not obviously 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.400 not at scale, but like King Leopold of Belgium taking 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:51.200 people's hands like that like this, Yeah, and there's like 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.960 there's some historical questions to be people work really hard 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.040 to make George Washington seems like a chill guy. There's 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.000 all of these articles you can find being like here's 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.920 the daily life of someone that he enslaved and it 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:04.920 like tries to be like in their free time, they 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.560 blah blah blah. No, they were fucking treated like ship. 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:14.000 One of the people people well only he only personally 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.160 owned a hundred and something of those people. The other 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.640 people just lived on his estate as enslaved. Motherfucker. Yeah no, no, 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.640 it's it's people work so fucking hard to try and 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.760 and so like, we know that he bought teeth from people, 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:29.720 and we know that he had all this ship with 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.240 his teeth, but it's possible he bought people's teeth and 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:37.160 they went in someone else's. No, he fucking there's anyway. 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:42.560 Whatever is a fucking horror villain. Then so he The 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:46.280 first day of Thanksgiving was the one he suggested. But 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.200 then it wasn't until the Civil War in eighteen sixty 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.960 three when Abraham Lincoln declared the current in acarnation of Thanksgiving. 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:59.040 And I hadn't actually realized this. The current incarnation of Thanksgiving, 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.400 the one that happened this week as you all are listening, 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.800 was created quote with the intention to heal the wounds 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.720 of the nation from the Civil War, and theoretically doesn't 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:09.680 even have anything to like mayflower in any of that ship. 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.840 But it's just not true. That's not what people are celebrating. 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.320 People are celebrating, um, the other ship. They're celebrating the 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.320 Mayflower ship because no one's even fucking because that's not 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:22.199 the story that we hear. We don't hear that. It 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.359 is a dave Thanksgiving to sit down with the people 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.040 who enslave people and break bread with them. And while 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.119 I'm just on a tear about I'm not like a 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.520 big fan of US presidents as like a general, I 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:38.800 will say Abraham Lincoln not a slaver. Famously the opposite 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.800 of that, his vice president was a slaver. But you know, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.960 and no, what he gets marks off as great is 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.120 that they oversaw the largest mass hanging in US history 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.359 of thirty eight members of the Dakota Nation Minnesota. Not 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.320 just was president during the hanging of but like personally 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.720 provided the executioners with the list of names after like 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.199 looking through the trial transcripts after these people have been 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.280 on trial for like five ten minutes each or whatever. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:11.160 That's where Thanksgiving comes from. And so yeah, happy thanks Giving. 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.240 I felt weird coming from you. I f hate Thanksgiving. 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.400 It's ship the idea of getting together with your family 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.840 or friends or chosen family or whatever you're into, and 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.320 like literally giving thanks That's cool, although it is worth 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.399 knowing that the idea of Thanksgiving was literally this idea 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.240 of erasing all of the other holidays that almost every 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.560 culture had naturally um set in front of them. Personally, 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:43.360 I dislike that people post the same picture of their crusty, dusty, 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.640 musty ass food all day. I don't want to see 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.639 your plate. I've seen it. I know what you're eating. 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.359 We're all forced to eat it or choose not to 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.120 eat it because it's bad. We got it, all right, 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:02.280 Yeah yeah, fucking sweet potatoes with mashed potatoes and your 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.320 fucking dry ass meat, like, we got it. And I 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.679 say this as a vegan, but one of the cringest 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:10.879 things is when vegans act as if the problem with 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:15.840 Thanksgiving is um the meat that's being eaten, as compared 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:25.880 to the colonization. Am it's a symptom? Yeah totally yeah. Yeah. Anyways, 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.720 which brings us to what we're really going to talk 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.200 about today, which is something unrelated to any of that, 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:33.800 which is a short story. But first, do you know 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.159 what else is a short story? Is it the story 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:45.600 of products? A show. Yeah, I like having a show, Sophie. 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.320 Do you like having shows? I like you having this show. Well, 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.800 then I guess it's a good thing that we are sponsored. 0:19:52.280 --> 0:20:00.439 Cool in a complicated way. Here's some ads, and we 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.760 are back. And the story I'm going to read today 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.440 is a retelling of a story that my father told 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.440 me when I was younger. Uh. It is the last 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:11.760 story in the book that I've been hawking at the 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:13.760 end of every single fucking episode as long as you've 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.000 been listening to this podcast called we Won't be here Tomorrow. 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.399 And so shout out to my dad for writing a 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:23.960 story that I then stole and to my own words, 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.240 and I'm now reading to you. It's called the thirty 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.720 seven Marble Steps. I grew up near the foothills of Appalachia. 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.080 And there's something to these forests. The trees themselves aren't old, 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.080 but the mountains are old. The mountains are old and 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.159 battered and smoothed over. And what is a forest but 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.720 the outbursting of life come up from the land. The 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:42.840 trees themselves are not old, but the forests are old 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.840 because these mountains are old. I grew up near the 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.200 foothills of Appalachia, and I remember when the Blair Witch 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.399 Project came out, set close to where I lived, and 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.600 it it didn't surprise anyone, like, yeah, the movie is 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:55.760 a work of fiction. But there's still something to these 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:59.119 mountains and these forests. There's still something there, something that 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.000 that movie drew from. My father told me this story 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:03.760 when I was a kid. He told me the story 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:05.800 under the bows and the stars, and it's not something 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.439 I'll ever forget. The next day, he took me to 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.320 the place it happened. He took me to the marble steps. 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.359 There are thirty seven marble steps in the middle of 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.240 the forest, far from any road. The steps climbed steep 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.159 and twisted up from a seasonal creek up to a 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.320 tiny concrete foundation peppered with stones. There's no house there anymore. 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.720 There is, however, a crack in the foundation. The crack 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.879 is narrow and long, and underneath there's nothing, not soil, 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.040 not rock, just nothing. You shine your flashlight through that 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.760 crack and you see nothing. You slide your skinny arm 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.119 through that crack and you feel nothing. You drop a 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.480 coin through that crack and you hear nothing. I tried 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:45.000 all those things. There was a house on that foundation, 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.760 years ago, years before my father was born, probably before 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:50.040 his mother was born, maybe before her mother came over 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.800 from the Old Country fleeing persecution. I couldn't tell you 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.919 when exactly there was a house on that foundation. It 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.560 doesn't make sense, for there have ever been one, not 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:01.840 out there's no road, not out where. Whoever built it 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.399 had to carry marble and concrete on their back or 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.640 on the backs of animals. I can't tell you why 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:09.320 there was a house. I can only tell you that 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:11.960 there was one. I can tell you about the woman 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.679 who lived there, too. I can tell you that she 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:16.760 didn't have a name, that she didn't need a name. 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:19.480 Names are not for yourself, there are for other people. 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:21.480 You live alone in a house in the woods, the 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.280 top of the marble steps, and you don't need a name, 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:25.800 because no one calls you anything. The people from the 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:28.400 nearby town, they just called her the woman who lived 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:32.720 in the woods. This woman lived alone, and she was ageless, 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.800 like all women who live alone. Learning that one myself, 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:44.400 it's been been nice. Bonus say, yeah, she lived only 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.040 five miles or so from that nearby town. That town 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.640 has gone now too. It probably had a name, though 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.199 I don't know it. The woman lived close enough that 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.480 people hiking or hunting in the forest saw the smoke 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:56.800 from her chimney and saw the lights in her windows. 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.320