Attention. You're listening to the Tod Huff Radio show, America's home for conservative
not Bitter talk radio. Be advised. The content of this program has been
documented to prevents and even cure liberalism, and listening may cause you to lean
to the right. Here's your Conservative but Not Bitter host, Tod Huff.
Well, Greeting's my friends. Here we are on Thanksgiving Eve. As I've
shared with you in the past, as I'm going to tell you again today,
this is maybe I shouldn't have this. Maybe it's kind of like children.
Maybe you shouldn't have a favorite episode of the year, like you shouldn't
have a favorite child. You all do you know that you do? You
know? I asked my kids, often ask my kids, which one of
you thinks who's my favorite? And I love it. They all think that
they're my favorite. We've got three and they all think that they are my
favorite, which I think is the way it should be. Anyway, this
is my favorite episode of the year. Whether I'm supposed to have it or
not, I do. And as I go through this today, I'll explain
the reasons why. But today we are going we're going to share the true
story of Thanksgiving now I have shared this yesterday. I made this abundantly clear
this episode and this is one. There's two main reasons why this episode is
so special to me. Number One, Thanksgiving their neck and neck to me.
But I'll say that Thanksgiving, I think is my favorite holiday. And
there's several reasons for that. One reason is because I do believe that Thanksgiving
is the purest, the purest of the holidays. I think that Thanksgiving is
the one that is the least commercialized. I know what's on the well,
what comes directly after Thanksgiving is Black Friday and all that. I know that,
and I know that that's arguably the most commercialized moment of the year.
However, Thanksgiving itself, I think largely is still not highly commercialized. It's
not something that is, you know, with with Santa and things that happen
around Easter and just I don't know, it seems less commercialized to me,
at least in my way of thinking. I also like that it's pretty straightforward.
I'm a lover of the Thanksgiving Day food. Thanksgiving turkey, we have
noodles. I'm blessed to still have my grandmother around. She insists, absolutely
insists on making dinner and she makes noodles and they are fantastic, And I'm
going to tell you, I'm going to have more than I probably should on
Thanksgiving with the food, the Thanksgiving Day turkey, the Thanksgiving Day noodles in
my case, and some pie or cake or something like that as well.
And on top of that there's football and family. See, these are the
things that are the most important to me. Football not so much as I've
gotten older, although I still kind of like to watch it. But anyway,
so there's that portion of the reason why it is so meaningful to me.
But the other reason, and of course the history behind the story,
right and the meaning of the holiday, which we're going to get into.
But the other reason is this is something that when I first started listening to
talk radio roughly in nineteen ninety nine, I don't know the first time I
heard the Rush Lumball tell this story, the true story of Thanksgiving, but
I know that I heard it from him, and of course I think that
he when he had his program, I thought everyone else was playing for second
place. Rush created this feel, this profession, this industry of talk radio,
and he had a profound impact upon me. I was a twenty was
I twenty one, twenty two year old kid tuning into Rush Limbaugh for the
first time. Senior. I think in college, working managing a standardbred horse
farm, listening every day to the program, and I just I loved it.
I loved his craft. I felt like, I know, if I
can do a fraction, have a fraction of the impact in the lives of
people listening to my program that he had upon me, I will feel like
I will feel like we've accomplished something because his impact upon me was profound.
And so to hear him tell this, I'm reminded of him. I feel
that bond that I had as I listened to him all those years ago in
the past. And of course he's been passed away for two and a half
years, I guess now, but it takes me back down that memory lane,
good memories, memories of listening to a program that I loved, listening
to someone that I greatly tremendously admire. So with that being said, with
that being said, I want to share with you the true story of Thanksgiving.
So this is coming now. This is much the same way that Rush
would have told it. It's based upon by the way, I'll even put
a link in today's show notes. If you want his book, I think
you can still get the book. The book is called See I Told You
So, See I Told You So. Though I'm slightly distracted here, there's
a noise in the studio I cannot identify at the moment. I don't think
that you could hear it, but I can certainly, I can certainly hear
it. So this is based upon his book. He wrote two books.
I forget this was if this was the first or second book on This book
that references the Thanksgiving story was in his books See I Told You So.
The other book was called The Way Things Ought to Be. I forget which
one was first. I know I've got this one. I think I've got
both. I honestly don't know. He also later in his career wrote the
Rush Revere series, which are children's books where he time travels and everything else.
But this one was written at the beginning I suppose of his career See
I Told You So, and he shares the true story of Thanksgiving. I've
also kind of put my own twist on it. There were some things that
I don't think I understood until studying this that had become clearer to me,
and I've studied this a lot. I've studied this a lot. You know.
One of the best ways I think to learn something is to have to
present on it. One of the best ways to figure out to just get
the information is to put the pressure upon yourself to actually have to share that
information. I remember as a young Christian, very young Christian. I became
a Christian at the age of fifteen, back in nineteen ninety three. I've
shared that before, but I remember one of the first things that I did
was I started in the church. I was attending teaching the five and six
year olds. And I say teaching, I'm telling you right now. I
was learning alongside them. I was spiritually at the same place that they were
as I was teaching, as we were playing Bible baseball, or as we
were going through the stories of the Old Testament and coloring the sheets or whatever
else. That was for me. But see what happens is when you have
to learn it enough to tell someone else, it puts that healthy pressure upon
you to learn it. So I've learned a lot about this because I have
to talk about this now. I want to talk about this. I don't
say have to in some sort of say, extense of obligation. I'm saying
this that it helps. So if you're wanting to learn something, I would
say, put the pressure on yourself to have to teach it to somebody.
I think that it's a good thing. Whether it's a Sunday school class,
whether it's something at work, whether it's a book club, I don't know
anyway. So Rush would always say this at the beginning of sharing the true
story of Thanksgiving. If you went to public school, you probably learned the
story of Thanksgiving some version of this particular story. Of course, Rush would
always include some sarcasm and hyperbole, which we will do as well in our
own in our own way. But the Pilgrims found their way here to this
nation. It would have been sixteen twenty. The Pilgrims stumbled upon Plymouth Rock.
They missed their target destination, which was supposed to be by the way
northern Virginia. They were supposed to land northern Virginia and then make their way
to the Hudson River, which is in present day New York, and that
was where they were going to establish their colony. But because of weather and
other events, they actually moved the landing point north and they landed in Plymouth,
Massachusetts, Plymouth, Massachusetts, Plymouth, Massachusetts, Cape Cod area today,
and they stumbled upon there, a bunch of you know, just goofballs
that didn't know what they were doing. They get off the ship. Of
course there's nothing there. They land in November. It was a two month
voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. It's cold. They went too far north.
There's nothing there, and so they have to immediately try to survive the winter.
And so that first winter comes and it was tough. But the Native
Americans came along, Squanto and other natives in that particular tribe of Native Americans
that came along, and they saved the helpless, pathetic pilgrims. Again,
this is there's some hyperbole and a little bit of fun exaggeration here, but
this is the gist of it, right. You got a bunch of people
that were religious. I left that part out. You may or may not
learn that. If you did learn that, it's often looked upon as some
sort of a derogatory thing. These super strict, no fun, hyper religious
people stumble upon the shores and they can't take care of themselves. The Native
Americans come along teach them how to fish, teach them how to hunt,
teach them how to catch beavers, and everything else help them survive. Then
the Pilgrims in the fall of that following year have a big feast where they
thank the Indians. Where they thank the Indians, they say, thank you
for saving us. Here's a great feast. And that's how some textbooks portray
the story of Thanksgiving. Now there's some exaggeration and hyperbole there, but you
get the drift. But there was a lot more. And Russia would say
this, it's not that's not at all the main lesson of Thanksgiving. Now
that doesn't mean that a lot of that didn't happen. That is a lot
of that is true, and some of it, of course is not necessarily
or not at all. But the general basis of that story is true.
But that's not what Thanksgiving itself is really about. We have to ask ourselves
who thanked who and what were they thinking them for. That's part of the
true story of Thanksgiving. So time out timeout is going to be taken to
this particular point in time. I am going to try to figure out the
source of this noise I am getting on occasion during the break. But a
quick time out is in order. My friends, sit tight. You are
listening here special day, my favorite episode of the year, the true story
of Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. And it also helps me remember my favorite,
absolute favorite, the one and only Rush Limbaugh at this particular time of
year, my friends, sit tight. Back in just a minute. Welcome
back to my friends. So here we are going through the day before Thanksgiving,
Thanksgiving Eve. We're talking about the true story of Thanksgiving. This again
is to honor the late great Rush Limbo, but also share with you what
I think is one of the best stories, especially as we celebrate the Thanksgiving
season. So when we left off, we were talking about what a lot
of folks had been taught in public scrul as Rush would say about the true
story of Thanksgiving. Now, it is true absolutely that Native Americans helped the
Pilgrims. In fact, if you want to research this or look into this,
there's one particular Native American named Squanto who was highly influential in helping the
pilgrims do learn how to fish and hunt and so forth in the New World.
So, but let's look deeper, deeper into the story of Thanksgiving.
So back in the sixteen hundreds. King George the first was persecuting everyone that
didn't comply and recognize that the state was the ultimate authority in all things religion,
how you live your life and so forth. And so there was a
group of people that were called the separatists, that called Puritans, that we
know as Pilgrims today. And these folks were hunted down, they were hunted
down, and they were punished sometimes. You know, the wording in the
constitution, the wording in the constitution, excuse me, talks about cruel and
unusual punishments and a lot of these separatists, these folks that did not want
to comply with the state controlled Church of England were given some very cruel and
unusual punishments. And so this group of separatists, known as the Pilgrims,
they said, we've had enough of the religious persecution. We're gonna go.
We're gonna getting out of here. And so they first fled to the nation
of Holland. They were there for eleven or twelve years, and you know,
things improved in Holland. As Rush would say, they got to wear
some wooden shoes and look at windmills and look at the tulips. Or whatever.
But they lived in Holland for some time, and you know, it
wasn't perfect. They weren't completely free there religiously either. There is evidence to
suggest that Bradford was concerned about the impact that culture was having on their community,
negative impact. And there were reports that they also wanted to spread spread
the gospel and so forth. So but for several reasons, one of those,
of course, ultimately being they still weren't quite as free religiously as they
had hoped to be, they decided that they were going to embark upon a
journey to the New World. Now we should know, we should know that
a journey to the New world via ship in the sixteen hundreds was not anything
like any of us can remotely relate to today. Neither is landing in a
new world. In November, which is when they actually landed at Plymouth,
Massachusetts, well that's actually when the ship took you know, set up itself
in the harbor. They didn't actually leave the ship until they finished writing and
signing the Mayflower Compact. I think they didn't leave the ship until December,
actually, but they landed, so to speak, they parked the ship in
the harbor in November it's a sixty six day journey. Sixty I've seen sixty
five and I've seen sixty six day journey across the Atlantic Ocean, you know,
in the fall the North Atlantic. It wasn't a balmy trip and a
tiny little ship. This ship was tiny. I mean there are there are
millionaires and billionaires today, billionaires that have yachts that are much more massive than
what the Pilgrims came across on. And so they realized it was time to
go. It was time to go to the New World. Now, a
couple of things about this one. There were about forty pilgrims that decided to
make this journey to the New World, and they wanted to establish religious liberty.
There might have been other reasons as well, but at the top of
that list was being able to live their lives, which, of course,
see living their lives is synonymous with being able to exercise religious liberty. Because
they were devout people. These were one and the same thing to them,
and so they wanted to be able to live their lives and live in accordance
with their conscience, in worship of their creator as they chose. And so
they saw that was at the top of the list. Again, there could
have been other reasons that I've alluded to, some of them I haven't,
But nonetheless they decided to embark upon that journey, roughly forty of them.
There were other people that were on that ship as well. We think there
were one hundred and two total passengers. There could have been up to thirty
crew tiny ship. They knew they were going to face hardship, but living
freely and worshiping God in accordance to their conscience was at the top of their
priorities. So so so so a couple of things here. In order to
get that ship, to get on that ship and to go to the New
World, they needed they needed to have money, and so they had these
merchant I think they were called merchant adventurers. These were people that were investors.
Basically, they were sponsors, and so they provided the funds required to
make this trip happen. Now, these were investors, so they wanted to
be paid back. However, these investors, these investors had requirements. One
of the requirements that the investors had was that everyone who was a part of
the colony, the Pilgrims colony, which would eventually be known as the Plymouth
colony because of where they landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, this colony was going
to be everyone had a common share, so everything they all owned it together.
Every piece of land, every structure, everything was equally owned by everybody
in the community. This was a requirement that was put upon the Pilgrims,
by the investors, by these merchant adventurers, if you will. And so
that's important to file away in your memory for just just a little bit as
we get through this story. So they get on the ship, they take
a journey across the ocean sixty five sixty six days. They missed their target
location. They end up in Massachusetts. As they're worked there in the bay,
they decide there was concern. The concern was we really are outside of
the area we're supposed to be in. There was actually some dissension according to
some of these reports and records and so forth, historical accounts as to what
they should should do. And so they said, look, okay, we're
going to establish this governing charter, right, so we're going to try to
accommodate the fact that we're not really where we're supposed to be. These are
going to be our rules. Them are the rules Mayfi our Compact. And
so William Bradford, who's the governor, the leader of this group, set
out toy they pinned the Mayflower Compact. And these were laws that everybody agreed
to live by. I think it was signed by forty one forty one people.
The laws, by the way, were rooted firmly in the Bible,
as you would expect from this group of very devoutly religious people. And so
these were people of faith. They came think about this, They came across
the ocean with I mean truly just a wing and a prayer in a sense,
right, And so they land. It's November. There's nothing there.
It's desolate, it's bleak, it's there's no grocery stores, you know,
I think, and this is something Rush would talk about, the fact that
we we cannot relate to this. We cannot as average everyday Americans, we
cannot relate to this. Short of people who have been in extreme military situations
or something like that, the average person, we can't relate to this.
Right. We have a saying in America today we say first world problems.
You know, we don't have Wi Fi, or if the coffee's not hot,
or if the internet's down, or if our charge, our phone charge,
we forgot it at home. This ruins days for people. These are
things, the fact the Pilgrims would have been happy, problems they would have
been happy to have. They were talking about and focusing upon mirror survival.
No shelter, no seven to eleven, no grocery store, no Walmart,
no Target, none of that. No Uber, no Southwest Airlines, none
of that. They had, none of that. They get off the ship,
they have their Mayflower compact, they have their faith, but they're heading
into the winter. They're heading into the winter. It's colder, there's nothing
there, and they made a great sacrifice to get here. So pausing there
timeouts in order talking about the true story of Thanksgiving. My favorite, my
absolute favorite. I know not supposed to have this. The more I say
this, the more I realize I probably shouldn't be saying it, but I
want to say it anyway because it's the truth. My favorite episode of the
year. As I said earlier, you probably shouldn't have favorite episodes of the
year, just as I shouldn't have favorite children of the year. Maybe that's
what I should do, pick a favorite kid for each year. They all
think they're my favorite anyway, which is a good thing. But nonetheless this
is my favorite episode timeouts in order, so type my friends more to say
on the other side of the break back in a minute, Welcome back to
my friends. Being prepared is a good thing. Being prepared for a natural
disaster, being prepared for a power outage that may come with weather as we
enter into these colder months. We're talking about the Pilgrims going into colder months,
colder times of the year. It's where we left off in our story.
But it's a good thing to be prepared for those sorts of things and
to anything the government may throw at us as well. So it may be
a good idea to get a three month food supply from four Patriots. Four
patriots dot com is the website. These supplies of food last for twenty five
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It's my last name this time. Don't try to use the first name.
You got to use the last name. Huff is the promo code saves you
ten percent on your first order at four patriots dot com. So that's where
we left off in the story. Was the Pilgrims facing a cold, bleak,
brutal first winter, and that's what they went through. Was a very
very difficult time. Nearly half, approximately half of all the pilgrims died that
first winner. Among those who died was Dorothy Bradford, the wife of Governor
William Bradford. It was a very, very tough time. The Pilgrims did
meet the Native Americans. Squanto and others were in that group. They helped
them learn how to plant crops when the springtime came, to hunt, to
fish, to skin beavers, all that sort of stuff, and so this
was very a critically important part of the process. I'm not saying that that's
not the case, but remember this would now have been sixteen twenty one,
sixteen twenty one. They landed in the November of sixteen twenty were now in
the spring of sixteen twenty one. They're managing to survive. They weathered that
first winter, but they took tremendous casualties, losing roughly half of the people
in that group. So they were barely surviving, but they were not thriving.
They were not thriving. Now this is where the end of the story
typically takes place. Because they planted some crops, they harvested some things,
they hunt some you know, some they fish, they hunted some animals,
and they were able to stock up a little bit, stock up a little
bit, and they did have a feast. That first Thanksgiving was in November
of sixteen twenty one, Fall of sixteen twenty one. It should be pointed
out, however, that ultimately these this deeply devout group of people were thinking
not Look, they were appreciative of the Innans, they were thankful for the
help of the Native Americans and so forth, but they were certainly not expressing
ultimate gratitude of them. They were expressing gratitude ultimately to God. And we
know we know this through several things. But the proclamation that George Washington made,
I'll put that in the today's show notes as well. The first Thanksgiving
should read this thing I thought about reading, and it's it's not super long,
but it's written in seventeen eighty nine verbiage, so it's a little difficult
to maybe hear some of that. But nonetheless, the gratitude was ultimately to
God. Not again, not that they weren't thankful to the Native Americans,
of course they were. But these were people that believed that they were called,
and they believed that God was teaching them how to survive and was providing.
So this, this is now where the rest of the story comes in.
Paul Harvey, I'm a big fan of If you remember Paul Harvey,
the rest of the story, this is the rest of the story. So
sixteen twenty one, the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims still struggled. They still
struggled for a bit. In fact, if you read Bradford's diary, if
you read some of the historical account, they struggled for a bit longer then
in sixteen twenty three, so we're talking a couple of years later at this
point. Incidentally, second Thanksgiving, Second Thanksgiving was held in sixteen twenty three,
So in sixteen twenty three they had been still surviving, but not thriving,
not prospering. The Pilgrims decided. The Pilgrims decided that, well,
Bradford decided, you know what, this this is a lot harder than it
has to be. Remember that rule that I mentioned earlier the rule that was
set into place by the the merchant adventurers, the investors in the Pilgrims.
Remember, I said that they required that everyone in that colony have a common
share, have an equal amount of ownership. Everything was thrown in one bank,
right, and so everybody owned the same percentage of everything that was produced.
Bradford said, this is not helping us. In fact, this is
hurting us. Why should one man? I mean, I don't have the
diary in front of me. I'll post this stuff on the website and the
stack of stuff if you want to read this. I'm just telling the story
right now. But Bradford basically said, you know, men started thinking,
why should I be working for another man's family when I am having trouble providing
for my own. What's the incentives? What's gonna I mean, there's nothing
here. I get the same amount for working my tail end off as this
other dude next to me gets for lounging around all day. There's something in
aparently not just about that. So Bradford said, this whole thing about having
an equal share, and this is the lesson that Rush wanted us to learn,
that we need to learn, and we need to pass on to that
next generation. The lesson. The lesson is that socialism sucks is basically what
it comes down to. And so Bradford said, to heck with all this,
the requirements that were placed upon us by the investors aren't working. We're
going to do something totally different. If not, may end up killing us
all. So what he did was he established this idea. They said,
I'm going to give a plot of land to every family, and every family
can do with that land whatever they deem to be appropriate. If they want
to grow extra corn and sell it at market, then they can do that.
They want to try to start some business, whatever, whatever they wanted
to do. They wanted to try to I don't know, just whatever they
could do that made sense for them. And Bradford later recounts that this led
to a tremendous amount of blessing, a tremendous amount of prosperity, so much
so, my friends, that this is the point in time where they really
began in full to trade and to sell with the Native Americans. They had
so much, They had enough for themselves, and they had enough to sell
and trade. And this is where commerce and free markets really begin to get
traction because now people Now people can prosper and begin to focus on the things
that they're really good at. If you're really good at, I don't know,
making horseshoes, and you can trade that activity, that work, that
labor, that product for someone who produces, maybe they're really good at knowing
when to plant, how to harvest, how to get the maximum yield for
their from their ground, and so forth. You know, why be average
at everything? Why not work together in a free way where we exchange and
trade and sell things so that the people that are very good at one thing
can benefit from the people who are very good at another thing. Efficiencies take
hold, prosperity increases for everybody. This is what the colony saw, and
it blew the roof off. The colony met in a good way that their
their cups runneth over in that physical sense and in a materialistics. But it
also fed their bellies. I don't mean that they were driving around in Mercedes
and Lamborghinis. I mean they they actually had so much much blessing they couldn't
it started to overflow. That of course, was the year they had the
second Thanksgiving. So really, if you want to really get down to brass
tax. Here the story, the real story of Thanksgiving, isn't complete until
we have the second Thanksgiving, because that is when prosperity not just the first
Thanksgiving was about raw survival. The first Thanksgiving was about g whiz. That
was a kick in the face. Right This Thanksgiving, which would have been
celebrated two years after the first Thanksgiving, was in sixteen twenty one, the
second was in sixteen twenty three. That the time span between those two Thanksgivings
is when Bradford put into motion this idea of free market capitalism, of the
issuance the possession of private property and to be able to do what is in
your best say interest, your family's best interests, with what you have and
what you own, and the prosperity and the yield and everything that was created
as a response to that was incredible. And the Pilgrims, my friends,
on that second Thanksgiving expressed their God for express their thanks to God for teaching
them, for revealing to them this better way. And things happen in result
as a result of this as well. So timeouts in order quick timeout.
Second Thanksgiving sixteen twenty three, prosperity has hit the Plymouth Colony because William Bradford
did something extreme, what was viewed as extreme with the time, by giving
a plot of land to families to do with what they determined to be best,
and tremendous blessings resulted. My friends, sit tight. You're listening here
to the Thanksgiving Eve episode of the Todd Hoff Show. My absolute favorite of
the year because it's my favorite holiday, because I can honor the late Great
Rushlanvaalf from which all of this information I'm sharing with you ultimately has come from
sitside. My friends back in just a minute. Welcome back, my friends.
Going through the true story, the complete story, the rest of the
story regarding Thanksgiving here on this Thanksgiving Eve, two thousand and twenty three.
So we kind of wrapped it up last segment, but ultimately William Bradford and
the Pilgrims thanked God for showing them, for providing for them, and for
showing them this better way for the prosperity. It allowed them, by the
way to pay I didn't finish this part of the story. The profits allowed
them to pay off their debts. It encouraged other people to come to the
new world. This was the beginning of the explosion of the Great Puritan Migration.
By the way, I write about this as well in this week's column.
If you want to get that, you can. It actually goes out
today todd haveshow dot com slash column. If you want to read it,
I'll have links in there as well, or if you want to have anything
in the show notes that I've referenced, I'll put some show notes together that
you can take a look at as well. So, but that's the story
of Thanksgiving, my friends. So that said, I want to take a
time out. I want to come back here and express on the other side
of the break my gratitude to you, my friends. Sit tight back in
just a minute. Welcome back to my friends. Not a lot of time
I was talking with us here during the break. I think I said King
George was the king, and King James. King James. The first was
the king, I believe when this all happened in the sixteen hundreds with the
Pilgrims in England. Anyway, that aside for the moment, I just want
to take this moment. I guess there's a third reason why this means so
much to me. This episode zig Ziglar used to say that the healthiest of
all human emotions is gratitude. And my friends, I am incredibly grateful.
I mean, I'm grateful to this nation. So I don't understand people who
hate this nation. It's not perfect, the my, oh my, this
nation has been a shining city on a hill, a beacon of hope for
so so many. I'm thankful for my family, I'm thankful for this show.
I'm thankful for my life. I'm thankful for Jesus. I'm thankful for
so many things. But in that group, my friend, at the heart
of that group, I'm telling you, is you. I'm thankful to rush
for the trail that he blaze, that I can benefit from and I learn
from so many things. But my friends, I am in tremendous h just
I am tremendously grateful for you, those who have listened from the very beginning,
those who have started even today. Thank you very much. Have a
wonderful Thanksgiving. We will see you Monday. Stg