By Mike Cox We just finished celebrating the only authentic American holiday, Thanksgiving. Everything else is stolen, borrowed, or invented by greeting card companies. Thanksgiving is truly ours.

Mystery surrounds the origin of Thanksgiving and why we think it is worth celebrating. Harmony between white settlers and natives was uneven at best and history written by the victors has proven to be unreliable. But we still get together to enjoy fellowship and gluttony on a late autumn Thursday.

Our gathering this year was pretty traditional and tame. We had ham and turkey, required in the South, and real dressing, not stuffing like Yankees tend to serve. There were actual cooked green beans, not the crunchy, bright jade abominations that the Food Network forced upon us as a joke.

We had two kinds of rice, potatoes, creamed onions, and asparagus casserole. Someone prepared

one of those semidessert

dishes that combine fruit, nuts and a congealed

base. It tasted fine and was popular among the “we think sugar is poison” folks. For the hardliners there was coconut cake and pie. We even had little brown and serve rolls that are not popular except during overeating holidays. They are simple and very tasty; so addictive they might be sprinkled with cocaine.

While the food was very traditional and conventional, the guest list was provocative. TV programs and movies have tried for years to convince us diversity is a collection of equal parts of all categories. Whether we are talking about school kids or work related cliques, the formula is always the same.

There is a big white dumb jock, a nerdy genius, three girls; one blond, one brunette, and one with glasses who is very smart. The group always has one black person, either a guy or a girl, also very smart. In addition to the mandatory black person there is one other person of color. That member of the group might be Hispanic, Asian, or slightly dark-skinned, with just a hint of ethnicity.

These people interact with each other wonderfully and work together to solve problems. I have never known a group like that in my entire life. I have been friends with people of all backgrounds and have noticed that most groups predominantly feature one demographic with a small sprinkling of something else.

We had only white people at our gathering but were extremely diverse. There was a cop, a doctor, a former professor, four writers, and one young entrepreneur. Ages ranged from over seventy to under seven. We had conservatives, liberals, moderates, and heathens.

There were Clemson fans, Carolina and Georgia graduates, Bama supporters, and one or two who didn’t care about football. We even had one Auburn devotee; someone was assigned to watch him at all times. He only got invited because we knew his parents were good people and he would be okay, except for the Auburn thing.

Nothing was broken, nothing was thrown, and no one raised a voice; except when Snickers the cat jumped on the dining room table. If this can happen here it can happen anywhere. There is still hope. Perhaps even Verizon and AT&T can stop fighting over coverage maps.