Editorial

Thank yourself this Thanksgiving

 From our house to yours

 The Mayflower arrives in Provincetown Harbor on November 21, 1620.

 Happy Thanksgiving from Cape Cod TODAY to you and your family

I want to remind our readers that this holiday did not start with a Harvest Feast in Plymouth in 1621.

It began a year earlier in Provincetown Harbor where the Pilgrims first landed on this continent and there created America's first Constitution - The Mayflower Compact in November of 1620.

Thanksgiving didn't become a national holiday for another 243 years when Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation declaring Thanksgiving be commemorated every year on the last Thursday in November.

"Not on Plymouth Rock but on Provincetown Sand;
The Pilgrim Fathers first came to land."                - Harry Kemp.

Lincoln selected that date because it was close to the date when the Mayflower anchored at Cape Cod, on Nov. 21, 1620.

Provincetown's Poet of the dunes, Harry Kemp said it best when he wrote, "Not on Plymouth Rock but on Provincetown Sand; The Pilgrim Fathers first came to land."

So as you gather with your family today, I want you to thank yourself.

Thank yourself for your achievements and for the love and support you got from those gathered around you.

You deserve it.

Walter Brooks, editor of Cape Cod TODAY, a Cape Cod locally-owned company where our news mission is "Cape Cod, 24/7."