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Johnny Campbell,

t is a basic notion that during the 1600's, accurately in the year 1621, the English settlers and the Wampanoag Indians got together and shared a fantastic fall harvest feast to celebrate the bounty from the rich earth. Today this celebratory feast is acknowledged to be one of the first Thanksgiving festivities in the early days of the colonies. While that long ago feast is supposed by a lot of people to be the first Thanksgiving celebration, it was, in fact, part of a long existing custom of celebrating the seasonal harvest and giving thanks for a good bounty of crops that would last through the long hard winter. Many Native American tribes of what would be named America, including the Pueblo, Cherokee, Shawnee, Huron, Creek, Blackfoot and so many others would hold huge harvest festivals, consisting in ceremonial dances, races, games and other cheerful celebrations of gratefulness hundreds of years before the European peoples arrived. If you are like me, you are surely wondering the kind of meals served at the harvest feast. Historians, as usual, are not one hundred percent sure regarding it; however they are sure that pilgrims weren't eating pumpkin pies nor building castle towers with mashed potatoes. However, it is easy to think that the list of meat available during this period of time should surely include venison as well as several types wild poultry such as duck, goose as well as wild turkey. While there are hundreds of manuscripts describing such feast, the most detailed description of this celebration of late harvest date of 1621 and was written by a man called Edward Winslow. It is from his manuscript called "A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth" that historians have gleaned the greatest part of information about this first Thanksgiving celebration:

Although the first Thanksgiving dinners were not concentrated on the turkey; today's usual meal primarily focuses around this animal. During the 17th century, vegetables were not as important as of today, so the meal of this period of time included a lot of different meats. The many types of vegetables we take for granted today were not available to the colonists. Freezing methods did not exist; which means that the vegetable consumption was based on seasonal harvests. Because the colonists and Wampanoag tribe had no refrigeration in the 1600s, they dried a lot of their foods to preserve them. They would dry corn, wild boar hams, fish, venison, and many wild herbs.

a cheerleader named Johnny Campbell got so excited that he jumped out in front of the crowd.

Johnny Campbell made cheerleading what it is today.

As an undergrad at Minnesota, Campbell directed the crowd in the still-used cheer: