For those readers in the US or those who observe the US holiday elsewhere, Happy Thanksgiving! Whether you are reading this as you start your day or towards the end of it as you complain about eating too much (and hopefully not during the game where my Patriots are taking on the Vikings, but I digress), I would like to share some unique tales related to the holiday.

Your humble author has actually spent a lot of time in Plymouth, Massachusetts over his lifetime. As a Bay State resident I of course visited the town for its historic role where the Pilgrims landed. Additionally I worked in the town for over a year and a half on a great consulting project early in my career (which I too should write about someday, another digression) and mixed with townspeople and tourists often. Allow me to share a couple of stories from that time.

Landmarks of Sorts

When I worked in Plymouth it was over an hour from my home, so I often shopped local businesses for goods and meals. There was a great sub shop in downtown Plymouth I would often go to, which just happened to be close to Plymouth Rock. Some lunchtime visits there were easier than others, depending on the number of tourists huddled by the gazebo that sheltered the infamous boulder.

One day after getting my lunch I observed there were only a few tourists by the Rock. Where every bone in my body was telling me not to go to it, I did anyway. I had visited Plymouth as a young adult before (as I will talk about later) and had seen it, but decided to give it another look. For those who have not had the pleasure to see it in person, it’s a large rock with “1620” chiseled into it, laying on the shore’s edge. The gazebo is a granite-pillared structure where you are standing a level above it looking down upon where supposedly Pilgrims took their first steps onto the New World. So that it is not disturbed by people, a gate is on the waterside of the gazebo, though water can freely splash on it.

So I stood there, with sub in hand, leering upon this tourist destination. It was somewhat peaceful looking down at it and Plymouth Harbor behind it. But the longer I was there, the hungrier I got and decided to have my lunch right there as I leaned on the railing under the gazebo. Where I kept the sub wrapped for the most part, likely crumbs from it landed on the centuries old symbol.

History Takes a Break

The Plimoth Patuxet Museums (known as Plimoth Plantation up until 2020) has on its grounds a creation of the original compound the Pilgrims built upon their arrival among other features. It is considered a living history museum, where in addition to the buildings there are actors who are dressed as people did in the 1600’s not to mention speaking in the English dialect of the time. Though someone who is not a fan of such places due to growing up in New England and going to such museums more than a person likely should, I have gone twice, the first time with my immediate family back in my young adult days.

As one tours the above-pictured village, you can see what is believed to be what it looked like back in the day as well as interact with people playing the roles of those whose names are familiar from history lessons, including William Bradford and Myles Standish. Though the exact location of the original compound and its specifics are largely unknown, it gives a good idea of what life was like at that time.

On the museum grounds is a beautiful visitors center that features a movie theatre, gift shop and a dining hall where you can have for lunch a Thanksgiving dinner (the hall also makes a great place to have a wedding reception as friends did when they got married at a park on the property several years ago, again I digress). Following a few hours of immersion in the history of the Pilgrims, we were hungry and decided to have said Thanksgiving meal and got in line at the cafeteria.

After a while standing in line I turned around and low and behold it was Myles Standish. Well, it was the actor who played him that we saw “on the set” a short while ago. He was still in his woolen period uniform, though he had unbuttoned the top and was wearing a very 20th century t-shirt under it. Tapping into my inner-tourist I smiled and said to him and my family, “look, it’s Myles Standish in line with us!” At this he scowled and said, “not now, I am on my lunch break.”

May you make your own Thanksgiving memories, in Plymouth or wherever you are.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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