On the surface this would not appear to be a difficult challenge, I mean all that is required is to reprogram your brain to understand that when you turn the steering wheel right the bike will go left and vice versa. But here is the crazy part, in this video, no one can successfully ride this bike! Hundreds of people have taken up this challenge and no one can ride this bike more than 2 or 3 feet before crashing.*
Why?
Let me segue to my original topic for this blog and see if I can tie these two topics together.
In my youthful education experience one of the many facts that I was fed was that Abraham Lincoln was the president who first issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation on October 3rd, 1863. This was hardwired in my brain and even when faced with a different narrative later in life, my mind still defaulted to my original teaching.
But that wasn't the truth . . . (or to quote the great Paul Harvey, "Here's the rest of the story."
You see, President George Washington, on October 3rd, 1789, issued a proclamation for the United State of America to celebrate Thanksgiving as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. And this was not the first Thanksgiving America had celebrated. The first thanksgiving took place at the Plymouth colony in the autumn of 1621 - which was a feast to thank God for their first harvest and in which the colonists invited members of the neighboring Wampanoag tribe to join them. And to drill down even further into the annals of history, the first national Thanksgiving in the United States was held on December 18th, 1777, to celebrate the American victory at Saratoga, New York. General Washington celebrated this holiday by giving his soldiers a special meal of rice and roasted pig and then by going to church.
It is evident that our nation had already established a pattern of celebrating victories with feasts and prayer so let's examine some of the details from that first Thanksgiving holiday in 1789:
- President Washington's declared that this 1st Thanksgiving would be held on November 26th, 1789.
- Washington celebrated this new holiday by attending services at St. Paul's Chapel on a stormy, rain-drenched day.
- Few citizens bothered to show up for this occasion, but Washington's intent was always about the greater vision of the nation.
- What Washington desired was to lead the nation in this new ritual, worshipping their God, speaking their language - thus diminishing the gap between the populists and the common man.
- He recognized that this new nation was fragile and could easily collapse, so his hope and prayer was that this holiday would become a civic celebration in which "we may then all unite."
- Washington also sought the help of the Divine, in his proclamation he asked God to "pardon our national and other transgressions."
- He knew that a nation born out of chaos and violence could just as easily dissolve into their previous character, resulting in citizens shedding the national interests for their own.
- Washington also put weight behind this day of celebration, contributing a sizable sum of his own money to purchase beer and food for prisoners confined for debt in the New York City jail. Caring for the least of this new nation was a principle he hoped to establish for the future.
- Finally, the words of his Thanksgiving proclamation, sound clear and strong throughout the years, "May God render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed."
