Good morning and greetings, December fans. Yes, the Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone, as records were shattered in the consumption of stuffing department. I am left with a very pleasant memory, along with 72 cans of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce to commemorate this blessed occasion.

To year round cranberry sauce lovers, I say, crave the wave. Your taste buds will thank you.

Now in last week’s post, I looked ahead to the holiday, previewing how others celebrated this glorious gathering of food and stress. So with the sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and green beans now just a low carb memory, I thought I would take a look back at the holiday that brings some families together while ripping others apart.

As I’ve always maintained, be someone that brings out the best in you, not the stress in you.

Now first of all, the Pilgrims did not celebrate this festival with Trader Joe’s turkey gravy. Back in 1621, they decided to throw themselves a rave party to celebrate the harvest, so for the fixings, the men went “fowling,” as in the hunting of wild birds. Then a group of Wampanoag Indians showed up with five deer and enough deviled eggs, spinach dip and stuffed mushrooms for 50.

Looking back upon this first feast, the menu was quite exotic for the times. There was lobster, fish, sushi, chicken, rabbit, flank steak, squashes, dried fruits, aging movie stars, eggs, goat cheese, tater tots, chestnuts, hickory nuts, shrimp toast and spring rolls.

Not making it to the table were mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, bagels, corn on the cob, cranberries, whitefish salad and the most important item, gravy, which we all know is a key component to the success of the meal. And no forks were used for this feast, as this utensil didn’t make an appearance in North American until the 19th century. So we’re talking spoons, knives, fingers, chopsticks and slingshots.

Historians say the party raged on for three days, and included the 50 surviving Pilgrims and 90 Indians, as they ate, played party games, shot guns for fun and watched football and the Macy’s Day Parade.

Now according to my sources in the South Pacific, long before the Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower, native Hawaiians were celebrating the longest Thanksgiving in the world. This holiday was called Makahiki, and lasted four months, from November through February. During these months of celebration, work, war, surf contests and reruns of “Magnum, P.I.” were forbidden.

So there was no mention of turkey at this original Thanksgiving. And let’s face it, when we think about this holiday, turkey is the number one bird on the hit list. The great American statesmen, Ben Franklin, wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the United States. Me, I always favored the peacock.

So here’s a few fun facts about the approximately 45 million turkeys that were consumed and then exhumed on Thanksgiving.

There is evidence that turkeys have been around for 10 million years, or right around the making of the pilot episode of “Law and Order.”

Only male turkeys can pull off the gobble gobble routine, which is a seasonal call that drives the females crazy during their mating periods. Hens prefer to cluck, like in get me the cluck out of here.

Domesticated turkeys, or farm raised, cannot fly. So they go Amtrak. The heaviest turkey ever raised weighed in at a hefty 86 pounds, about the size of a large German Shepard or an small Austrian sheep herder.

Now here’s an unusual fact. Due to white meat being the most delectable and popular part of the turkey, these large birds have been bred to have huge breasts. As a result, the female’s backs are always killing them.

Now this takes all the fun out of the equation for both sexes because the domesticated turkeys are no longer able to mate, due to the breasts getting in the way of the mounting of the female. So they have to settle for a romantic dinner, a movie, then on to some heavy petting before they call it a night. Chickens have all the luck.

And finally, let’s give a shout out to Sara Josepha Hale, a magazine editor who is the author of the popular nursery rhyme, “Mary had a little lamb.” She urged President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving, as until 1863, the holiday had not been celebrated annually since the first feast back in 1621. She believed the day would unite Americans in the midst of dramatic social and industrial change and awaken our hearts for love and home and country.

And most importantly, it would create a day for Americans to wake up at the crack of dawn, so they can get in line to wait for the stores to open at great malls of our nation. We know it as Black Friday, a consumer’s dream come true, and just the way God created it. Because only in America, do people trample other for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.

So for our holiday photo session, we are returning to Thanksgiving morning, 2014. I had slept in till 6:30, but when I saw that red glow on the eastern horizon, I dashed out of the house, parked the car at Bird Rock and sprinted down West Cliff to catch the amazing glow of the red clouds above Monterey Bay, before catching the sunrise over at Steamer Lane. Just a spectacular way to the start off the holiday.

On to some best of late night humor. “Yesterday New Jersey Governor Chris Chistie was asked about the slow pace of his weight loss and said, quote, ‘Rome was not un-built in a day.’ In fact, Christie and Rome have a lot in common: one was built by Julius Caesar, and the other was built by LITTLE Caesar.” – Jimmy Fallon “Ted Cruz of course, was furious that the big storm back east shut down the government. He said, ‘That my job!’ But you know, there is a big difference between Ted Cruz and snow. Both are white and everyone’s sick of them – but eventually snow goes away.” – Bill Maher

“The Arizona legislature passed a bill that would allow business owners asserting their religious beliefs to deny service to gay customers. Some businesses have already put up signs that read: ‘Nice shirt, nice shoes, no service.'” – Seth Meyers “Presidents Day, of course, started out as celebration of Washington’s birthday. Then someone remembered it was Lincoln’s birthday on the 12th. So now we celebrate Washington, Lincoln and all the other Presidents. I have no idea how this led to mattress sales. It’s probably something do with Bill Clinton.” – Craig Ferguson

“Yesterday the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks advanced to the big game, which means this year’s Super Bowl will have teams from the two states where recreational marijuana is legal. Or as pizza delivery men put it, ‘Pray for us.'” After the president’s State of the Union address, there will be three separate Republican rebuttals. Obama said, ‘Yeah, I live with two daughters, my wife and my mother-in-law. Three people telling me I’m wrong is a holiday.'” – Jimmy Fallon

So welcome to December. We’ll catch doubling your scoring average for the third straight season while nailing the three ball. Aloha, mahalo and later, Draymond Green fans.

Good morning and greetings, turkey day fans. According to my Nicki Minaj desktop calendar, Thanksgiving is coming up on Thursday. For most, it is a week filled with joy, as families reunite and share in a bounty of food, drink and tryptophan. My favorite amino acid helps the body in making niacin, an important B vitamin, which works well as both a floor wax and a dessert topping.

So this week, the airports are packed and people take to the highways like lemmings. Or as the late, great Johnny Carson once observed, “Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then they discover once a year is too often.” Hiyo.

Now when I look back into my blogging archives, it seems that I wax nostalgic about my favorite national holiday in the even years, as in 2010, 2012 and 1846.

So for today, I hope you’ll pardon me if I bring back some of the greatest celebrities quotes and a few new ones about this festival of turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and enough stuffing to fill the Grand Canyon.

So Thanksgiving is always a November to remember, as uncontrolled violence, er football, takes center stage on this holiday. Or as comedian John Caponera put it, ‘Who knew the Pilgrims liked football so much?”

It’s a time of bonding, when relatives and friends come together. Jon Stewart, coming off his directorial debut of his new movie, “Rosewater,” grew up in the Garden State of New Jersey and enjoys reminiscing about the holiday. “I celebrated in an old fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then killed them and took their land.”

It seems that the Indians got a raw deal in this whole Thanksgiving story. Or as Native American comedian Larry Omaha puts it, “My mother won’t celebrate Thanksgiving. She says it represents the white man stealing our land. But she’s not angry, she figures, what the hell, we’re taking it back one casino at a time.”

For the host family, a good part of the day is spent in the foxhole, better known as the kitchen, preparing for a feast that will be prepared by a few, eaten by many and cleaned up by less. Unfortunately, many people will go hungry on this day, and that is a sin. No one in America should go hungry.

Or as Mother Theresa once tweeted me from a Backstreet Boys concert, ‘If you can’t feed 100 people, feed one.”

There is something vaguely satisfying about putting together a meal that feeds so many. I just love cramming stuffing into the bird’s cavity, as the instructions always say to ‘lightly stuff” the bird.

Well, after I finish jackhammering the delightfully flavored mix of bread crumbs, celery, and unions into the self basting butterball, I place it in a plastic bag, and it does all the work. It’s like magic. There’s a great future in plastics.

Or as Roseanne Barr once described the filling of the crevice, “Here I am at five o’clock in the morning, stuffing bread crumbs up a dead bird’s butt.”

George Carlin had this take on the holiday. “We’re having something a little different this year for Thanksgiving. Instead of a turkey, we’re having a swan. You get more stuffing.” And it’s always so moist.

So it makes for a long day, but it only comes around once a year, and you have 365 days to recover from it. It can be a little stressful when the families reunite. Or as Stephen Colbert once noted, “Personally, I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie, and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car.”

Thanksgiving is celebrated by most all in America, from the common working stiff to high profile celebrities in Hollywood. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzeneger, who is busy man due to the double family front on this occasion, made a keen observation when he quipped, “I love the Thanksgiving turkey…it’s the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.”

Now my favorite TV talk show host, David Letterman, is retiring from the late night wars sometime in 2015. He will be missed. Here’s his take on the holiday. “Thanksgiving is the day when you turn to another family member and say, ‘How long has Mom been drinking like this?’ My mom, after six Bloody Marys, looks at the turkey and says, ‘Here kitty, kitty.'”

As the world know, David Letterman is a huge admirer of the world’s most powerful woman, Oprah Winfrey. As I’ve said before, Oprah is a saint, a woman with a huge heart that overflows with love and generosity. She changes lives on a daily basis, and if you want to model yourself after someone, the Big O would be a good starting point.

This is her thought on the day. ‘Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never have enough.” Or as comedian Kevin James once spouted, “Thanksgiving. Not a good day to be my pants.”

Which leads me to the words of writer William A. Ward, who so eloquently once said, “God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say “thank you?”

Well, I believe I have. I am particularly thankful for my health and the health of my family and friends. But I would also like the give thanks to you, the readers of this blog, who take time out each week to decipher whatever humorous thoughts sprint across my mind. It’s all about the laughter. The photos are the icing on the cake.

So for my final thoughts on this day before we celebrate Black Friday, I will defer to one of the funniest and palest men in American, comedian Jim Gaffigan, to put the holiday in the proper prospective. “Thanksgiving. It’s like we didn’t even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is, we overeat. ‘Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?’ ‘But we do that every day!’ ‘Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us?'”

So in honor of the turkey day, for our photo follies, we are featuring a cluster of their distant cousins, the pelican. The day was November 14th, and I had heard a rumor of a mass gathering at Natural Bridges State Beach. Sure enough, they were packed in on the rocks like sardines and with the gulls down on the sand.

We then return to November of last year, as we head down to the Municipal Wharf and take in a couple of outrageous feeding frenzy moments, as the birds were going anchovie crazy. There was non-stop action with the volume turned up.

We then move on to a big flock of pelicans in flight heading north before we finish up with a delightful shot along West Cliff Drive of these amazing birds moving through the sun as it dips into the horizon.

On to some late night humor. “There are reports that leaders from ISIS and al-Qaida met at a farm house in Syria last week, and agreed to work together against their common enemies. That story again: Two radical terrorist groups managed to do what two American political parties cannot. The Keystone XL pipeline would run from Canada to the Gulf Coast. It’ll be the biggest underground structure leading into the U.S. Then people in Mexico said, “Eh . . . second biggest.” – Jimmy Fallon

I don’t know if you know this but Hitler was a painter and one of his watercolor paintings is being auctioned off. It’s expected to sell for over $60,000. So if you’re looking for a wedding gift for Charles Manson.”- Conan O’Brien “Today is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. President Lincoln wrote it on his way to the site of the speech on the back of an envelope. One guy on the back of an envelope wrote the great Gettysburg Address — while every night it takes six guys to write this crap!” -David Letterman

“Germany has overtaken the United States as the world’s favorite country. The favorite country survey was based on more than 20,000 people in 20 countries. Isn’t it a little bit unfair that they did this before the McRib came back?” -Jimmy Kimmel “David Bowie’s new album is a greatest hits collection called “Nothing Has Changed.” On the cover he looks in the mirror and he says nothing has changed. When I look in the mirror I say, “Hello, grandpa.” – Craig Ferguson

“Scientists say the European space probe that landed on the comet has detected organic matter. This means there could be either life in space or a Whole Foods. We just don’t know. This week a group of activists, known as Anonymous, hacked the Twitter account of the KKK. The KKK is furious. They said Anonymous is just a bunch of cowards who don’t have the courage to show their faces.” – Conan O’Brien “A man in California was arrested after he stabbed his potential employer during a job interview. Well, at least now he knows where he sees himself in five years.” – Seth Meyer

So that’s my big holiday post. Enjoy this gathering for what it is and perhaps take a moment to think about the military families that are apart on Thanksgiving.

We’ll catch you slinging touchdown passes and putting up big numbers on the board week after week. Aloha, mahalo and later, Aaron Rogers fans.

Good morning and greetings, Hanukkah fans. Last Wednesday night was the start of the celebration of the festival of lights, and I’m not referring to cruising down Sepulveda Blvd at rush hour. But at the same time, it was Thanksgiving Eve, as the NFL nation got ready to set caloric intake records on Thursday.

Now why was this happening? I always feel there should be separation between church and real estate, as two big time holidays converging at the same time should be avoided at all costs, especially if there are potato latkes at stake. I should mention that Hanukkah runs for eight nights, so there is plenty of time to enjoy the holiday, but there was just something that didn’t feel right about the situation. It’s like ordering spare ribs or putting shrimp salad on a piece of challah. It’s just not kosher.

After all, before we start feasting on Thanksgiving dinner, some of us are already anticipating the second night activities, when the Pilgrims dined on leftovers. I believe it might have been John McCain’s great, great grandfather who first coined the phrase ‘Round Two.’ Who says you can’t reheat again?

Now the key to the second night is always having enough gravy, because dry white meat has been the ruin of many on the back end of the double dip. Of course, you’ve got to hope there’s still a good amount of stuffing left over from the first night. If these two key components are in place, then it should be smooth sailing ahead. Besides, by this time, I’m just thankful my shorts have an elastic waistband.

Getting back to Hanukkah, it’s a holiday that I always look forward to. It’s not so much the lights, the gift giving or the family camaraderie, but the applesauce and sour cream on top of a combination of shredded potatoes and grated onions that really puts me in the holiday spirit. Throw in a little flour, salt and eggs, fry them in oil that lasts for eight rounds of servings, and bingo, you’ve got yourself something that Martha Stewart would be proud of. A real holiday tradition, something that makes the world a warmer and happier place through carbohydrates.

So moving on to the photo department, here we were at the end of November and I had not yet shot a sunrise of note. Now others might say that every sunrise is spectacular, but what I’m looking for is something so colorful, so magnificent, so breathtaking that only Oprah could create it.

The sunrise drought ended last Tuesday morning, as I awoke and looked out the window and saw deep color in the early morning clouds. I immediately jumped out of bed, excited at the prospect at seeing some early morning magic in the sky. I rushed down to West Cliff and as you can see from the photos, was not disappointed at what then transpired over the Pacific, as the sunrise was just late November spectacular.

I realize that I am drawn to these moments, that perhaps I’ve found a calling. I’m not really sure how this all transpired, but at this point, with over six decades on the planet in the books, it’s a good place for me to be. It brought to mind the words of comedian Fred Allen, who once said, “California is a fine place to live, if you happen to be an orange.” Thank you and drive home safely.

On to some late night humor. “I remember one year Mom was fixing Thanksgiving dinner, the turkey is in the oven, and she’s tearing the house apart looking for her cellphone. Later, we’re all sitting down to eat and the turkey starts to ring. This year Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah are on the same day. I’m no theologian, but I think what that means is eight days of leftovers.” – David Letterman

“It’s that’s special time of year when your whole family gathers together in one place to look at their cellphones. And I’m going to start dinner by telling my parents I’m gay. It never gets old!” – Jimmy Kimmel “A new study found that parents who only have daughters are more likely to be Republican, which I guess explains why my Dad registered as Republican when he saw me throw a football.” – Jimmy Fallon

“The big news this week is that the U.S. finally got Iran to agree to stop making nuclear weapons. In exchange, the U.S. has freed up $8 billion of Iran’s assets. When asked how it plans to spend the money, Iran said, “We’re going to buy nuclear weapons.” The Patriots overcame six fumbles and a score of 24-0 to beat the Broncos in overtime. It was amazing. They came back from dropping the ball and being down 24 points. Or, as Obama put it, “What’s your secret?” – Jimmy Fallon

So that’s our post holiday report. We’ll catch you showing basketball fans why you’re the most explosive guard in today’s NBA. Aloha, mahalo and later, Russell Westbrook fans.

Good morning and greetings, post holiday fans. Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone as the turkey, along with mounds of stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce is just a happy caloric memory. It’s a holiday I always look forward to as it involves food, family and football, and not necessarily in that order. Or in the words of the late Johnny Carson, “Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday, People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often. Hiyo.

It’s a November gathering that brings families together to kick back, enjoy a fabulous meal and reminisce. No pressure, no presents, no Pilgrims, just being around people who we are closest to and the baggage they bring with them. It’s a simple way to celebrate a day that fills the memory books. Jon Stewart remembers this holiday well. “I celebrated in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”

For the home team, a good part of the day is spent in the kitchen, preparing for a feast while many around the world go hungry. As Mother Theresa once told me at a Bon Jovi concert, “If you can’t feed one hundred people, feed one.” For a home cooked Thanksgiving dinner, much needs to be done in preparation. But this work can be rewarding. As the queen of macadamia nuts Roseanne Barr once crooned, ‘Here I am at five o’clock in the morning stuffing bread crumbs up a dead bird’s butt.”

It’s a long day in the kitchen, but then again, this holiday occurs only once a year, giving you 365 days of rest in-between. Myself, I don’t mind the work, as the TV is on and football makes a pleasant backdrop for this late November surge. Columnist Erma Bombeck was an interested observer of the all-consuming pigskin experience. As she once wrote, “Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Halftimes take twelve minutes. This is not a coincidence.” Or as my rabbi once noted, “On Thanksgiving Day, all over America, families sit down at the same time-halftime.”

It’s a fun day, as we reunite with family we sometimes see just a few times throughout the year. For the simple man or a big-time celebrity like Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s a special day on the culinary front. In the words of the Terminator, “I love the Thanksgiving turkey…it’s the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.” And as David Letterman once chimed in, “Thanksgiving is the day when you turn to another family member and say,’ How long has Mom been drinking like this?’ My mom, after six Bloody Marys looks at the turkey and says, Here kitty, kitty.”

And we know that Dave Letterman is a big fan of Oprah. Oprah is a saint, a woman with a huge heart that overflows with love and generosity. She changes people’s lives on a daily basis, and if you want to admire someone in life, you might want to start with the Big O. This is her thought on the day. “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never ever have enough. Or in the words of inspirational writer William A. Ward, “God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say “thank you?”

Well, damn it, I have, and I’m thankful for all I’m blessed with including family, friends, health and a new 51″ HD Plasma TV to watch the Food Channel on. But to put the holiday in proper perspective, I’ll let the final words flow from the pale face of comedian Jim Gaffigan, an expert on bacon who came up with this riff. “Thanksgiving. It’s like we didn’t even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is, we overeat. ‘Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?’ ‘But we do that every day!’ ‘Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us?'” Thank you and good night.

For today’s photo entree we are featuring the first half of the November 14th double dip, when both the sunrise and sunset shined from sea to sea. In my last post we featured the dusk experience, where the texture of the clouds seemed unreal. For this sunrise, I misjudged where the prime action was and set up way down at the end of Its Beach (photo #1) to try and capture the red reflection on the water. But the real deal were the clouds above Steamers Lane, which I caught in photo #2 when they had turned mandarin orange, creating a citrus sunrise effect.

Then the heavy clouds rolled in and I moved along to take in some silhouette action from Lighthouse Field. All in all, it was a day of double delights, with folks along the central coast getting two spectacular sights for the price of one. For me, it was just another chapter in the life of a photo blogger with his trusty digital camera and a golden retriever that will never leave him.

On to the late night. “Facebook just launched a new app. They teamed up with the Department of Labor to create what they call the social jobs app. You can browse through 2 million job listings. You know it’s bad when even Facebook thinks it’s time for you to get a job.” –Jimmy Kimmel “During his final speech on the House floor yesterday, Congressman Ron Paul said the Constitution has failed. Which must be a bummer because he’s actually one of the guys who signed it.” –Jimmy Fallon

“A decorated war hero has an affair with his own sexy biographer, who thinks the spy master is stepping out on her with a second girlfriend. So she sends an email from a secret account saying ‘step off or I will cut a bi-atch.’ And the second hottie freaks out and contacts her friends, FBI agents, who launch an investigation, but gets pulled off the case because he sexed her a shirtless photo. The spy master protege, also a general, has sent thousands of e-mails to the second woman. This isn’t just a love triangle, folks. It’s a love pentagon.” -Stephen Colbert

“It was announced today that former General Petraeus has agreed to testify before Congress. I guess he figured, ‘Why not?’ Those questions can’t be any tougher than the ones he’s getting at home right now. See, when a general tells his wife, ‘I was pitching a tent in Afghanistan,” technically he’s not lying.” –Jay Leno

So that’s our last blast for November 2012. We’ll catch you showing NFL fans that despite suffering a devastating knee injury last year, you’ve amazingly come back better than ever this season while leading the league in rushing yards. Aloha, mahalo and later, Adrian Peterson fans.

Good morning and greetings, post holiday fans. Last week was different from others throughout the year, as many of us were able to deviate from our normal midweek routines and shift our focus to the festival of thanks, giving and gravy. It was a huge week for stuffing, as I personally made enough to feed a small Caribbean nation. After then roasting a 23 pound self-basting turkey along with some extra thighs to satisfy the dark meat side in all of us, it was on to leftover city as we all waited for the bell to sound for round two.

Ah, Thanksgiving. The holiday congers up many a pleasant thought in the hearts and minds of so many people. We’re talking a virtual plethora of food, family and football. I hadn’t been left with that warm a feeling since our thermostat got stuck on 85 degrees a couple of years ago.

We started our Thursday extravaganza with a variety of appetizers, continuing a tradition that would have made Trader Joe’s proud. Personally, I try to avoid much of the pregame meal, as in my role of George Washington Carver, after I’m done surgically performing my magic on the carcass crammed with moist, flavor-packed stuffing, I’m already half full. Or would that be half empty?

But this is not a great day for the turkeys or their relatives. And what do we really know about this main component of the Thanksgiving meal? Well, thanks to Sarah Ganly of Yahoo’s Associated Content, here are some fun facts about our recently exhumed holiday bird.

Turkeys have Jim roamed the planet for almost ten million years. Wild turkeys sleep in the low branches of trees at night, which means they can fly. They spend their days like Washington lobbyists, foraging for foods like acorns, seeds, berries, small insects, Congressional aides and gluten-free stuffing. A turkey can fly as fast as 55 miles per hour, sprint like Usain Bolt at 25 miles per hour, and do the hokey pokey, because that’s what it’s all about. Turkeys can glide without flapping their wings or gums for about a mile, which really impressed the Wright Brothers. Unfortunately, domestic turkeys can’t fly, except off the shelf at holiday time.

According to research by the Drumstick Institute, more than 45 million turkey are cooked and eaten in the U.S. and Puerto Rico at Thanksgiving. We’re talking enough gravy to fill Lake Michigan. Wild turkeys have a very different taste from farm-raised turkeys. Almost all of the meat is “dark,”, which drives Tea party members crazy. However, there is no documented evidence of any difference between wild and domesticated stuffing.

Turkeys have no external ears, but are experts at reading lips. These big birds can have heart attacks just like humans, and was proven when turkeys died from the shock of jet planes flying overheard and Herman Cain leading the Republican field of candidates. And sadly, if a turkey looks up when it’s raining, it can drown, which can also happen when smothering gravy on the white meat.

Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey, instead of the bald eagle, to be the national bird of the United States. He said the balding eagle had “bad moral character” and that in comparison, the turkey was “a much more respectable bird, a true original native of America and a bird of courage.” And all this time I thought Larry was the national bird.

So have you ever wondered why we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November? Or why the eagle flies on Friday? Well, we can thank Sarah Josepha Hale, a writer who penned the nursery rhyme “Mary had little lamb with mint jelly.” She wrote to President Abraham Lincoln, encouraging him to set aside the last Thursday in November “as a day for national thanksgiving and prayer.” She said “we have too few holidays and that Thanksgiving, like the Fourth of July, should be considered a national festival and observed by all our people, especially those who like dark meat.”

Hale was a writer and a visionary, whose fleece was white as snow. She thought this holiday would be therapeutic for our country and a catalyst in preventing the outbreak of civil war. Unfortunately, insanity reigned, and as civil war waged throughout the nation, President Lincoln issued the proclamation creating this national holiday of green beans, cranberry sauce and pumpkin lies. I give Ms. Hale much credit for detesting war and bringing about this holiday that joins families and the nation together in watching the NFL Network. Like I told my draft board, I’m a pacifist and not even comfortable when the the North plays the South in college football’s Senior Bowl.

Since there’s no late night humor this week I’ll substitute my annual Thanksgiving joke. A turkey farmer was always experimenting with breeding to perfect a better turkey. His family was fond of the leg portion for dinner and there were never enough legs for everyone. After many frustrating attempts, the farmer was relating the results of his efforts to his friends at the general store. “Well I finally did it! I bred a turkey that has 6 legs!” They all asked the farmer how it tasted. “I don’t know” said the farmer. “I never could catch the darn thing!”

For today’s photo playbook we are returning to last weekend, as I shot back-to-back sunsets from Stockton Avenue along West Cliff Drive. I didn’t get those outstanding fall colors I was hoping for, but the clouds definitely caught my attention, and when I put the zoom lens on, that’s when things really got interesting. It reminded me of the bachelor party I never had.

So another Thanksgiving is in the books. Now it’s on to high school basketball and some Christmas Day NBA tripleheader madness. We’ll catch you breaking the school record for most career touchdown passes. Aloha, mahalo and later, Andrew Luck fans.