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Armed with Gratitude

by Trevor Alixopulos

DETAIL OF PANEL 3: CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS, ONE WEARING BLUE, ON GRAY, IN BRUTAL COMBAT OVER A THANKSGIVING TABLE SETTING
1. The "First Thanksgiving" taught to last century’s schoolchildren had the merits of being a true story of humans behaving themselves, with mercy and decency... [LINUS FROM PEANUTS IN AN AUTUMNAL SETTING WITH WOODSTOCK THE BIRD FLYING NEARBY SAYING] “Also self interest!” ...but as history, it's a ret-con, the holiday as we know it was started hundreds of years later, by totally different people.
2. Essentially a regional folk-holiday before, Thanksgiving was lobbied into national status by writer Mary Josepha Hale, the author of "Mary Had A Little Lamb.” [MARY SAYING] “let’s agree on cider and Pie.” Nominally an abolitionist, Hale's main focus was on a sort of 19th Century Martha Stewart career, which brought her a national platform (and Abe Lincoln's ear.)
3. [CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS, ONE WEARING BLUE, ON GRAY, IN BRUTAL COMBAT OVER A THANKSGIVING TABLE SETTING] Lincoln's 1863 proclamation gave thanks, that despite the homicidal family feud taking place, most of the country away from the battlefield was free from injury, want or fear.
4. [A WOMAN WITH CHILD, FEARFULLY HUDDLED UNDER A TABLE STREWN WITH SIGNS OF VIOLENCE AND A DEAD BODY] That said, Lincoln was clear that the ongoing mayhem was the nation’s just deserts, and until the Lord finished serving them, we may as well sit tight and attend to those among us who had lost the most. The "widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers" who can only thank that the worst has already come and gone, leaving them only with breath to draw and love to give. [SIGNED] 2025 TOA

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Trevor Alixopulos
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