Every year shortly before Thanksgiving
The President of
the United States is presented with a live turkey (two in fact as one
is a spare) but since 1989 during the first Thanksgiving of President George H. W. Bush, a tradition
has started where president has granted the turkey a "presidential pardon" and thus
spared it from being eaten.
The origins of pardoning the
White House turkey however are about as unclear as the future of the birds
which are spared the chop! Most Thanksgiving turkeys are bred and raised for
size at the expense of longer life so are prone to have very short lives after
being spared.
Many credit President Harry Truman (above) with
starting the tradition in 1947, however, the Truman Library says that
no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs or other contemporary
records are known to exist that specify that he ever "pardoned" a
turkey. The Eisenhower
Presidential Library says documents in their collection reveal that
President Dwight
Eisenhower ate the birds presented to him during his two terms.
President John F. Kennedy
spontaneously spared a turkey on Nov. 19, 1963, just days before his assassination,
but did not grant a "pardon." The bird was wearing a sign reading,
"Good Eatin' Mr. President." Kennedy responded, "Let's just keep
him."
Since 1989 when the custom of
'pardoning' the turkey was formalized, the turkey has been taken to a farm
where it lives out the rest of its natural life. For many years the turkeys
were sent to the not so aptly named Frying Pan Park in Fairfax
County, Virginia but between 2005 to 2009, the pardoned turkeys were
sent to the sunnier climates of either the Disneyland Resort in California or the Walt Disney World Resort
in Florida, where they served
as the honorary grand marshals of Disney's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This
year’s birds Cobbler and
Gobbler, will follow their predecessors Peace and Liberty and Apple
and Cider who were sent to live at Mount Vernon, the estate
and home of America’s first President George Washington.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!
Photo Legacy: Making your memories last forever www.photolegacy.com
Images courtesy of The U.S. National Archives on Flickr
under the Commons Agreement
Research courtesy of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Thanksgiving_Turkey_Presentation
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