With the rest of the 11-19-08 Tribune-Progress editorial page filled with urgings for us to be more considerate of each other, though I appreciate that the Bartlett Philosopher meant well, intending to encourage us to stay grateful this Thanksgiving Holiday despite the onset of hard times, invoking us to realize that our first such celebrations were fraught with their own difficulties, let us please use still more common sense by refraining from uttering pejorative phrases such as “fearsome, bloodthirsty savages” to depict the Native Americans who shared the Pilgrim’s first meal of bounty, and but for whom, there would have been no meal of Thanksgiving, bounteous or otherwise. Savagery, like beauty, depends upon the eyes of the beholder.

To Native Americans who lived in the area when those early English-speakers came ashore, white people were strange indeed. For one thing, they didn’t bathe regularly so their odor preceded them as a stench. They didn’t decorate their bodies with artistic symbolism, but rather covered nearly every inch of their skin with cumbersome clothing that proved too hot in warm weather but not enough protection when the season turned cold. They had a peculiar concept of ‘mine’ being more important than ‘ours’ and perhaps the most pathetic aspect, they had no feasible idea how to survive off this land which proved so foreign to them.

We living today are in many ways the luckiest ones, present to both witness and help implement a new era of prosperity and justice for all of us peopling this great Democratic Republic. Let’s start this process by vowing to be more accurate and sensitive to others with our wording.

Sincerely,

Jane Leatherman Van Praag

P. O. Box 354

Bartlett, TX 76511-0354.