Thanksgiving 2025: Pilgrims, Native Americans, Turkey, and Football

 Thanksgiving 2025: Pilgrims, Native Americans, Turkey, and Football


The month of November is a very special time of the year. I am one of 35 million world-wide descendants of the 1620 Mayflower voyage and Plymouth Plantation. I have distant ancestry of the Seneca Native American Peoples. Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia will play the Commonwealth Cup football game, one of the longest-running rivalries in college sports.


Civilization, itself, is closely related, even identified, with the success of the Fall agricultural harvest and yield of the crops. The human story in Bible Genesis begins in the Garden of Eden. Government and religious leaders depend, almost exclusively, on the bounty of the harvest and the standard of living for their respective members. The Puritan Pilgrim Separatists of the 1620 Mayflower and Plymouth Plantation, fleeing religious persecution in Europe, established the first permanent English settlement here in the New World, and did nothing less than introduce civilization to the Americas. Less than half of the original 102 Pilgrim settlers survived the first Winter here in the New World. However, the treaty agreements with local Indigenous Native Americans and rising prices of various commodities on European markets helped establish the success and permanency of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, thus having the First Thanksgiving.


History has shown peoples with lofty philosophical ideas of a utopian society or religious notions of purity, piety, and righteousness to ultimately be unsuccessful. The Pilgrims' story is truly remarkable and one of the greatest success stories of the past millennium. However, most modern democracies are founded on the basic principle of "no taxation without representation", directly linking personal income and economic prosperity with governmental performance, not some philosophical ideal or religious belief. Furthermore, today's Native American Peoples view the Christopher Columbus 1492 voyage and the 1620 Mayflower voyage as the theft of Native Indigenous Lands and destruction of the Native American Way-of-Life. I am a Christian Baptist with a B.A. Philosophy from Virginia Tech. The Baptists played a very important part in establishing the Religious Liberty Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I am currently researching how technology can help improve Inter-Faith Dialogue and opportunities between the different Christian Denominations and other faith traditions.  

  

Nevertheless, the agriculture sector has been the single-largest industry here in Virginia and in the United States for more than 400 years, since the founding of Plymouth and Jamestown. I hold a B.S. Business Economics from Virginia Tech and I am trying to find funding for Virginia Tech's online Master Agricultural Economics. The 2025 economic numbers relating to the U.S. Agriculture sector are forecast as follows: $236.6 billion Cash Receipts from crop sales, $298.6 billion Cash Receipts animal livestock, poultry and dairy sales, and the USDA's September 2025 forecast of total Net Farm Income at $180 billion. While the total cost of the 2025 Thanksgiving Dinner is expected to remain constant, or slightly decline, from last year's total dinner cost, the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving Dinner, the turkey, has nearly double in price from last year to just under $2 per pound.


In conclusion, I am very proud and happy to have ancestry of both the Plymouth Pilgrims and Seneca Native Americans Peoples. However, the November Thanksgiving Week is also College Football Rivalry Week. My alma mater, Virginia Tech Hokies, will play against the University of Virginia Cavaliers in the 106th meeting of the Commonwealth Cup. The two colleges have been playing the football series for 130 years since 1895, and it is becoming known as the South's Oldest Rivalry. There is little-to-no chance my alma mater, Virginia Tech, will win against this year's nationally-ranked UVa Cavaliers, but any day watching Virginia Tech Hokie Football is a good day.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2025!




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