Two Thanks giving

Day Gentlemen
There's a day that's ours. There's a day when all Americans go back to the old
house and have a big dinner. Bless the day. The president gives it to us every
year.

Sometimes he talks about the people who had the first Thanksgiving. They were
the Puritans. They were some people who landed on our Atlantic coast. We don't
really remember much about them.

But those people ate a big bird called turkey on the first Thanksgiving. So, we have
turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, if we have enough money to buy turkey. That's a
tradition.

Yes. Thanksgiving is the only day of the year that is purely American. And now
here's the story to show you that we have old traditions in this new country. They're
getting older faster.

That traditions in the old countries. That's because we're too young and full of life.
We do everything fast.

Stuffy Pete sat in a seat in the New York City park called Union Square. It was the
third seat on the right when entering Union Square from the east.

Stuffy Pete sat in the park looking directly in front of him for ten minutes. Then he
felt the desire to look in a different direction. With great effort, he moved his head
slowly to the left.

Then his eyes opened more and his breathing stopped. His feet in his shoes
broken at the ends of his short legs moved on the floor.

Because the Old Knight was crossing Fourth Avenue to Stuffy's seat.
Every Day of Thanksgiving for nine years, the Old Knight had come there to find
Stuffy Pete in his seat. That was something the Old Knight was trying to turn into a
tradition. Every day of Thanksgiving for nine years I had found Stuffy there. Then
he took Stuffy to a restaurant and saw him eat a big dinner.

They do these things more easily in ancient countries like England.

They do them without thinking about them.

But in this young country, we must think about them. To build a tradition, we must
do the same thing over and over for a long time. The old gentleman loved his
country. He thought he was helping to build a great American tradition. And I'd
been doing great. A son would stand proud and strong before Stuffy and say, "In
memory of my father«. Then it would really be a tradition.

But the old gentleman had no family. He lived in a room in one of the old houses
near the park. In the winter he cultivated some flowers there. In the spring he
walked down Fifth Avenue. In the summer he lived on a farm in the hills outside of
New York, and spoke of a strange insect he hoped to find one day. In the fall
season he gave Stuffy dinner. These were the things that filled the old gentleman's
life.

Stuffy Pete looked at him for half a minute, helpless and very remorseful of himself.
The old gentleman's eyes shone with generous pleasure. His face grew old every
year, but his clothes were very clean and fresh.

And then Stuffy made a strange noise. I was trying to talk. As the old gentleman
had heard the noise nine times before, he understood. I knew Stuffy was
accepting. “Thank you. I'm hungry”. Stuffy was very full, but he understood it was
part of a tradition. His desire to eat on Thanksgiving was not his. It belonged to this
kind old gentleman.