Sybil Bruncheon's "Little Known History for the Holidays!"...

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Did you know that the Mayflower and the Pilgrims first landed in Provincetown on Cape Cod?... NOT in Plymouth as you were all taught in grade school! As a matter of fact, several of Mummie's ancestors decided against sailing the extra distance on to the "mainland" of the New World, and stayed on with many native Americans in the lovely topography and seashore of what would very soon become Provincetown with its picturesque views! No wonder it became the festive, frisky, fun, and FABULOUS center of New England gay life we know today!.. not at all like the forlorn life that the other pilgrims went on to live in Plymouth with witch trials, executions, and paranoia that followed almost immediately! PILGRIMS! They were all PILLS, and certainly GRIM! Ah well.... This is one of those many things that I'm thankful for on Thanksgiving! That I came from the right side of the tracks... or the BAY, as the case may be! LOLOLOL! <3

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Our Thanksgiving Heritage!... Pilgrims & Pageants in Perrysburg"...

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Boys and Girls, some of the best things of the Holiday season are the school plays that young people produce for their parents and teachers in small towns all over our wonderful country. Over the years, I have been so pleased to see many of them; one of them remains permanently... um... etched into my mind. I was on a dinner theatre tour of THE INCREDIBLY LOVELY AND WITTY WOMAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (a rewritten play by an ex-boyfriend of mine and his gay pal!), and I happened to be in a charming little town named Perrysburg for Thanksgiving. The Mayor generously invited the entire cast both to his holiday dinner and the theatre afterwards at the local high school! The title of the play was OUR PILGRIM FOREFATHERS & THEIR FRIENDLY INDIAN RECEPTION IN THE NEW WORLD.

The audience settled into their seats, reading and ruffling their mimeographed programs with the loose staples but the Heavenly smell! (oops!... have I said something?!) And after some light chatter and hellos, the lights came down in the Wilbur & Orville Wright auditorium, and the overture began. Well, it wasn't quite an overture... more like rhythmic and fairly emphatic drumming and some flute-tooting and dried gourd shaking. Suddenly from both sides of the stage, several young men "dressed" as "Indians" came out dancing, whooping, and jumping about which soon became very feverish, and, if I may say so, very athletic. The lighting became very orange and flickered as if perhaps this tribal ceremony was being lit by a huge camp fire (very clever as we audience members nodded and whispered appreciatively!), and then the Indians began to wrestle each other and throw each other about. The actors began to perspire heavily, and really conveyed the earnestness of their commitment to the roles they had taken on. Round and round the Indians swirled, screeching and bellowing, and even charging audience members in the front rows and up and down the aisles. Ladies in the audience and gentlemen of sensitive natures pulled out hankies or kleenex tissues to fan themselves. This whole tumultuous scene continued on for about 30 minutes or so, building to a crashing, screeching, sweating, drumming, fluting, gourding crescendo!!... and then... BLACKOUT!

The florescent auditorium lights came up, and the entire cast of young men strode out on stage for a curtain call. They bowed, smiling to the polite, friendly, but somewhat bewildered applause. And they were given 2 1/2 curtain calls, before the curtain finally came down. The Mayor and his wife, along with the Town Council members were very proud of the pageant and were eager to hear our "Big City" opinions of their local artistry. We, of course, were generous in our praise and even went backstage to shake hands with the cast. Then it was off to after-theatre drinks and a light dessert before we returned to The Commodore Perry Hotel.

I shall never forget how we cast members gathered in the morning to chat over breakfast... and the questions! Where were the Pilgrims? At what point was the "the friendly reception" or indeed any evidence of "the new world"? Was the tribe that first met the Pilgrims completely devoid of any female members?... or had they died in some terrible catastrophe? Our stage manager asked where was the scenery? There hadn't been a teepee, a wigwam, a birch bark canoe, or even a birch tree. And Mrs. Carruthers, our wardrobe lady, mentioned that she never saw a moccasin, a headdress, or even a single feather... "Not even war paint!!"... and we all had to agree!

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Sybil Bruncheon's "OUR THANKSGIVING HERITAGE!!!.... Sober and somber....

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Our Pilgrim forefathers were very sober and somber. There was no room for music, dancing, laughter, luxury, or even any sign of personal vanity. Indeed, the acknowledgement of "self" was strictly forbidden to the point where one's name was the only possession one actually "owned". People did not really even know their own ages since being born was absolutely no occasion for celebration...and birth dates were neither mentioned or remembered. Even calendars were considered unnecessary, decadent, a possibly an invention of the Devil. A prayerful soul observed the Sabbath Day every week...and nothing else, season after season. It was for that reason that historians have never been clear on one thing.... Did all Pilgrims die fairly young since the average lifespan in the 1600s was so short...or, did their life of total abstinence and self-denial keep them incredibly healthy and youthful? Fascinating to realize that this image could be of a husband and wife in their twilight years at 12 years of age...or conversely, at 86 years of age.... you decide. Whichever... they certainly look unhappy. And that's just as it should be. Hallelujah!

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Sybil Bruncheon's "30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING!"... Ethan & Noah...

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... For years after they arrived on the New England shores of the New World, the Puritans had been mocked by the Native Americans who were already here. Called "Pilgrims", they would hear the Indians snicker at dinner time about how they were all "pills" and certainly very "grim". Their clothes, demeanor, work habits, and forlorn jokes and songs without melodies did nothing to improve their standing, and it took a toll on their livelihoods both on Cape Cod and in Plymouth where many of them settled. Nightclubs like "The Jolly Prayer-Man", "Old Mistress Silly's", "Reverend Jokester's Joint", and "The What's ALE-ING You Bar & Grill" all closed after only a few months. Even little shops like the "Lamb of Peace O' Cake Cottage" and the "SIN-lessly Almost Delicious Semi-Sweets Hovel" couldn't survive the cold and dour Winter or the half-hearted business that came their way. The biggest laughs were usually heard at the local blacksmith's forge and only when Josiah Industrious Howard hit his thumb with a mallet.... (although he DID draw huge crowds of listeners who would sit patiently for days to hear him injure himself at which point he would be met with shrieks of laughter and wild applause, sometimes with 10 minute standing-ovations...and encores!).... It was in this sad and grey climate that some of the settlers would escape for a much-needed taste of passion, life, love, and a little romance.... Oh, how lucky, how very lucky Ethan Nickerson and Noah Paumgartner were to find each other and to discover a mutual interest over near Fog Hollow Marsh on that chilly November afternoon.... They'd always look back on November 16, 1640 as a lovely first date at anniversary time..

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “OUR THANKSGIVING HERITAGE.... HALLELUJAH!!”…

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OUR THANKSGIVING HERITAGE!!!..... Our history books all say that when the Pilgrim forefathers first sailed into Cape Cod, they were stunned by the abundance of the New World. This quote from Miles Standish is from a missive to Goody Simplicity Rumplebum; "Yay verily, Mistress, it was owr great goode fortune for wich we prayed our harty thankings, that wen wee landed on the sanddee shor, we did see cuttle fish, clambagoes, winkles, erster shellabones, tunettes, crinkletoes, crays, bombottoms, toozly-toos, and all manour of eatables in vast-yee numbers so that every Christ-ian sole might eet his fill, man, woman and childe!... why even the crabbes and lobsters seemed to walk ashore to greet us when we showed them our poles.... Hallelujah! We all have yowled our gratefull Hallelujah!"...

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “OUR THANKSGIVING HERITAGE!!”.... TO BE? ..OR NOT TO BE?...

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Facebook Friends!!... so many of you have heard about the Pilgrims who landed in Plymouth in 1620 and how somber, sober, and serious they were.... humorless, colorless, dour, judgemental. But what everyone forgets is that the Mayflower first landed on the tip of Cape Cod at what later became Provincetown. And the pilgrims who decided to stay THERE and NOT go on to Plymouth were a very different mindset! Fun, funny, capricious, stylish, lovers of fine food and fashion, music, dancing, parties, practical jokes, dirty limericks about candle-makers and farmers' daughters!...well, you get the idea. I mean, you HAVE heard about Provincetown, right?

Well, maybe you're a descendant of one of those two different Pilgrim groups?? ....at Thanksgiving time, ask yourself, which kind of person are YOU? Do you drown your sorrows at the dinner table in yam casserole with baby marshmallows while Uncle Fred tells his stupid knock-knock jokes for the umpteenth time? Do you nod politely and take Cousin Edith's hand over the Cheez-Whiz appetizers while she tearfully recalls being stood up for her junior prom 37 years ago? Do you fall asleep on the sofa with a bowl of stuffing sitting on your belly waiting for you to snack on later "aftah da game"?

...OR, Do you make your dinner guests play fun party games like spin the bottle, strip poker, and pin the tail on the donkey with Mrs. Ferguson from next door as "the Donkey"? Do the mince, and pumpkin pies end up being the ammo in a giant pie-fight with your boss and his wife... and your housepets? Do you fantasize about shopping on Black Friday at Van Cleef and Arpels for a diamond brooch shaped like a turkey, a teepee, or the state of Massachusetts??...

It's a choice folks... Are you a PILL and very GRIM??... or do you drop water balloons on Rihanna in the Macy's parade as it goes by your apartment building?? Guess which branch of the pilgrims Mummie is a descendant of, and why she calls herself a Pil-CHEERFUL!.... and why I love Provincetown so! YAHOO!!!!

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