Thanksgiving as Strategy

Because they were educated on the West Coast, my children were taught next to nothing about the original colonies beyond the reductionist claim that the Pilgrims were “colonizers,” a word now used less as description than as accusation.[1] They learned to dismiss the charming saccharine gloss of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with knowing irony, andContinue reading “Thanksgiving as Strategy”

Genetics and New England Pathology

I am a W.A.S.P (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) eligible as a card-carrying member of both the Mayflower Society and the Sons of the American Revolution. My maternal grandmother’s sister invested the time and patience to complete the proofs required by the Mayflower Society.[1] That lineage, the Messinger–Taft branch, is documented cleanly from Plymouth Rock to me,Continue reading “Genetics and New England Pathology”