Growing up, the first course at Thanksgiving was always the same.
**Five kernels of corn.**
Five little kernels that served as a reminder for where this day of feasting began. During their first winter in the Americas, the Pilgrims were reduced to five measly kernels of corn a day. Many of them did not survive, and had it not been for Squanto, a Native American Indian who taught them how to grow food, none of them would have made it.
Since my family is related to William Bradford, one of those founding Pilgrims, we probably would not have made it either. Thank you Squanto.
My brothers and I would sometimes roll our eyes at the corn illustration while dad would repeat for the umpteenth time the story of that first Thanksgiving. That’s what teenagers do; we give attitude, only to admit later that our parents were pretty brilliant.
