Thanks For the American Dream

Thanksgiving -- the day, the holiday -- is an integral part of the idea and the ideal we call the American Dream.

And what dreamers they were, those original Pilgrims, pilgrims from Europe, who began to establish America as we now know it.

They dreamed of being free, in a land of abundance. And when they first planted the seeds of their dream, back there in the early part of the 1600s, they gave thanks for the chance to even just begin living their dream.

As so many critics now eagerly (a little too eagerly, for my taste) accuse, these new settlers from Europe were not perfect. Nor were their deeds, and the deeds of the generations they spawned on this continent, perfect. Much wrong was done. And, yes, American history, for many of us, has been perhaps over-romanticized.