This Week's Story
click here to play audioEthan, we are regular guys, gripped with the thought that our country is in trouble. What has been good in our country and what can be good?
This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.
Motorcycle Quest, part two
When my brother and I rode up on our motorcycles to join the Pilgrim and Wampanoag Native American thanksgiving celebration, our eyes nearly popped out at the variety of food and people. We sampled foods regardless of their taste and smell.
Eel was roasting on split poles. I remembered that Squanto had taught the Pilgrims to catch eel and prepare their squishy twisty snake bodies into delicious food. Venison, turkey, and shellfish were satisfying. Roasted corn was like home food. Pumpkin pies and succotash were scrumptious. Hardtack, also called firecake, tasted awful!
It was mixed and baked in an iron kettle with no yeast. The ingredients were water and flour. A treat would be an added pinch of salt. We were told hardtack lasts for years and gives energy, but no nourishment!
When I sampled a piece, I thought of Valley Forge where years after the Pilgrims came to the New World, the starving soldiers of the American Continental Army daily ate hardtack.
My brother whispered, “Jack, look to your right.”
A tall man had joined the celebration. He stood at least six feet two inches tall. The men around him were much shorter.
“Jack, that is President George Washington. How can he or we be here in 1621? At home it is the year 2020. For President Washington it is the year 1789.”
“Ethan, I am beginning to see what was good in our country. We are all Americans, with shared history. There are freedoms we all want. I think our history teacher gave us a time transport to help our search.
“The Pilgrims left their homes in Europe to worship God freely and provide for their families. President Washington fought and led the Continental Army to have a new country with freedom to govern itself and to recognize God’s goodness. The Indians want the right to their land.
“Ethan, I am not unusual or especially smart. We’re regular guys, gripped with the thought that our country is in trouble. Even if we seem extreme, we are searching for what has been good in our country and what can be good.
“My questions drive me. I want answers. I am discovering on this trip that people in our country like the Pilgrims and President had the courage to do what they believed to be right.
“I was reading what President Washington wrote when he declared a day of national thanksgiving. The Congress requested that he do so. Here is part of his proclamation.
“‘I do recommend and assign Thursday the twenty-sixth day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these states, to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be: that we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind care and protection of the people of this country….’”
This is Barbara Steiner, on a similar quest, without a motorcycle.
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