Thanksgiving story

2023-11-23

Dear friend,

Things almost ended badly for the first village that cultivated pumpkins.

I heard about it from my great-cousin.

No one knows where the first pumpkin plant came from. There it was summer, growing out of the village's collective compost pile. The vine was replete with huge, round pumpkins that ripened to orange that autumn.

The fruit demanded their attention but at first, no one knew what to do with it. The kids tried rolling around on them, and then a mom swooped in and took one off to her kitchen. One by one, a brave cook would bring one into their kitchen and experiment with it. The villagers were a stoic group that had survived a lot. They didn't talk a lot at the pumpkin patch about what each household did with its pumpkin. The pumpkins were being eaten and enjoyed, and that was all that mattered.

Next year, the compost pile produced even more pumpkins then before. The compost pile had become a sacred location. The village turned out together to harvest that fall, and stored the many pumpkins in the cold cellar at the bottom of the old nuclear missile silo. 

A market was set up, and families would come by every couple days to take their turn at bringing a squash back to their home. Smiles were exchanged as everyone enjoyed cooking and eating pumpkin, each household doing it the way they liked.

Orange was the new green. All was well for a time. Even irony rested.

Thanksgiving greetings from Halifax!

But a community that only holds together in thriving times is never tested, doesn't know its own strength. Just like muscles only grow from being micro-torn by exercise, and calcium is deposited in our bones following piezoelectric activation of the structure from torsion and stress, so this village was put to the test by day they ran out of pumpkins that winter.

Everyone's nerves were a little frayed from listening to the talking heads they spent more time with in those days then their flesh-and-blood neighbors. I know, things were a little mixed up but this is when the learning occurred.

My cuz heard screaming coming from the silo and ran over.

Two villagers were facing off over the last pumpkin, each with one hand on it.

"It's my turn for a pumpkin today," said one. "I need to roast that flesh and make one more pumpkin pie for Pi Day or my son will flip out. Give it to me!"

"Flesh?" said the other villager. "Gross! I toss out that spongey pumpkin flesh. We roast the seeds and eat them on the bleachers while we watch sportsball. We have championship sportsball contest tonight. Give ME the orange orb!"

Hunger was beginning to bite them both. They both thought angry thoughts.

"I'll fight for this," one decided in its head. "What do I have to lose?"

"There's not enough to go around, anyway," thought the other one. "I'll just take what I need."

What broke up the fight? What they said afterward was that a voice spoke in each of their consciences, and told them what they needed to do.

Maybe the equivalent today would be hearing a trusted voice on the radio, someone like Ken Squier, who died last week in Waterbury, Vermont at 88. (AP story) Ken was a friend to many as founder of Thunder Road Speedbowl, owner of WDEV Radio, and NASCAR Hall-of-Famer narrator.

Ken Squier speaks in Charlotte, NC, at his 2018 induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame

The voice said, "One of you take the seeds, one the flesh. Share the labor of scraping out the insides. Teach each other to cook. Exchange dishes."

And so they did that, and there was peace and prosperity in the village. Households were seen getting together for sportsball parties at which both pie and roasted seeds were served. This was a Golden Age, literally, of innovation -- pumpkin Jello-o and pumpkin-spice lattes were first discovered here. Pepitas were ground into flour that became pancakes.

"What had objectively appeared to the villagers as a scarcity was only a mismanagement of resources, lack of communication, and stifling of innovation through siloing" my cousin told me.

He said the villagers also learned a lesson that day about the value of open communication of needs. "The villagers thought that by cooking their private dishes in their private homes and not asking anything of anybody, they weren't relying on anyone else in the village," she told me. "They felt that not over-relying on others was the core of their social contract."

"What this village realized that day that in communicating more specifically about their needs and wants, and building inter-dependency, they had the potential to become an even more thriving village. And these folks felt they were able to do so without giving up any freedoms or consuming more resources."

"Wow," I said. "I feel this story speaks to me about where we find ourselves today. I had better tell my peeps."

***
Happy Thanksgiving, Tristan, from our family here in Halifax to yours!

Give irony a rest -- what's the most extraordinary story you're telling around your table today? I'd love to hear. 802-275-2881 -- leave a voicemail if I can't pick up.

love,

Rep. Tristan Roberts
Halifax, Vermont

P.S. Rest in peace Ken Squier -- a true and treasured Vermonter.

“Ken Squier was there when Nascar was introduced to the rest of the world in 1979 for the Daytona 500. I’m convinced that race would have not had its lasting impact had Ken not been our lead narrator. We still ride the wave of that momentum created on that day.” - Dale Earnhardt

P.P.S. We have room for a few more folks in our farm history tour tomorrow. Bring your family for a look at centuries of Vermont history as told through stone structures. $20 suggested donation to benefit new roof for Halifax Historical Society: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/farm-history-tour-tickets-752696564687​