A few days ago, I posted an e-mail regarding gun control in America, and I feel it deserves both an explanation and a sequel. First off, this gun control e-mail and its sequel (or prequel, rather), "The Thanksgiving Story", are not addressed to retarded children as you may have imagined. In fact, the audience is a middle-class Australian family whose young matriarch was befriended by Alana several years ago on a European bus tour.

Alana likes to keep her foreign friends up on American culture, so she sends them informative e-mails regarding gun control, the history of Thanksgiving, etc. from time to time. Then she forwards them to me to rub her knowledge and cosmopolitan essence in my face. Although her fifth grade essay phrasing is funny in and of itself, I prefer her irrelevant non sequitors and frequently incorrect facts (ie, mixing up the second and fifth amendments and claiming that Canada has no guns). So, without further ado, here is Alana's Thanksgiving Story:

-----Original Message-----
From: Alana Wagner
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 8:38 PM
To: Misc Australians (whose identities have been somewhat withheld)
CC: Incredible Eagle
Subject: Re: Thanksgiving

The U.S. was founded by pilgrams who wanted to escape religious persecution. They set sail on the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock. Life was harsh for the pilgrams and many lives were lost the first winter. To celebrate their first harvest and their Native American friends they had a Thanksgiving. Among,the foods served on the first thanksgiving were fish and maize(corn).

Now we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of every November. My family serves turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls, and pecan pie. I hate pumpkin pie and yams, but thats just me. Lots of people love pumpkin pie and yams, but I'm so not one of them.

In elementary school around Thanksgiving students usually work on little craft projects about what we're thankful for. These projects usually consist of using making a tracing of our hands on construction paper. This tracing turns into the shape of a turkey, which we then write the things we are thankful for, like family, etc.

Another big tradition on Thanksgiving is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Macy's is a department store with their largest and oldest store located in New York City. Ever since the 1930s or before, Macy's holds a parade down the streets of NYC on Thanksgiving Day morning. Huge balloon animals float above the parade as people hold the balloon strings. Balloon animals such as Charlie Brown, Sponge Bob, etc. There are also many floats and celebrities singing holiday songs. From across the country various high school marching bands are invited to perform in the parade. There were about 8 or so bands in this year's parade and one of them was a local high marching band, so that was pretty big news.

On a side note, Thanksgiving is followed closely by Christmas in December, so this time of year is very difficult for Americans who are on diets and the like. There are always articles in the newspaper about keeping off the holiday weight and how not to overdo things at holiday parties.