Happy Thanksgiving from the PIA Western Alliance

The board of directors, the management and the staff of the PIA Western Alliance wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving. To kick off your holiday festivities here are a few fun facts about Thanksgiving.

Some of them are really surprising.

The first Thanksgiving lasted three days and was celebrated over 50 years after the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock. Today, with all the Black Friday stuff, lots of leftovers and — sometimes — a lot of family members hanging around, it seems much longer than three days.

The Macy Thanksgiving Day parade began using balloons in 1927 a few years after the parade was established. Originally, some groups opposed the parade on Thanksgiving saying it took away from Thanksgiving’s religious tones.

Only male turkeys go “gobble, gobble.” Females do not.

When it comes to eating turkey, 88% of Americans will eat turkey on Thanksgiving day. And the day after, and the day after, and the day after, etc.

By the way, Turkeys were actually named after the country.

The song Jingle Bells was actually written for Thanksgiving. It makes one wonder if the title might have been, “Dinner bells, dinner bells, eating too much dinner all the day.”

Or something like that.

You can thank a bad cook who blew it when cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for the invention of the frozen TV tray dinner. We’re not sure we want to know much more.

Butterball has a Turkey talk line and has had one for over 40 years. Apparently, the person who blew the Turkey dinner leading to the frozen TV dinner didn’t know about that hotline. Over 100,000 people a year take advantage of Butterball’s good will.

Thomas Jefferson — the nation’s third president and the author of the Declaration of Independence — didn’t believe in Thanksgiving. He thought the whole giving thanks thing was too religious.

Outside of eating 46 million turkeys, we’ll also eat 50 million pumpkin pies this Thanksgiving.

Editor Gary Wolcott’s favorite Thanksgiving movie. It’s 1987’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy. He says Candy — especially — deserved some kind of award for his funny, sad and brilliant performance.

The movie was completely ignored by the Academy awards honchos. Paul Newman won the Oscar that year for The Color of Money.

Paul Hogan won the best comedy actor for Crocodile Dundee.

The movie was also ignored in the comedy movie category when it is clearly the only one of the bunch that people still care about to this day.

Again, happy Thanksgiving to all of you from all of us.

The PIA Western Alliance office will be closed November 28 and 29 for the holiday.