The Puritans arrived in America a long time ago, sometime before the first Fourth of July weekend. The minute the first one set foot on that windswept spot on the rocky shores of New England, near a flashing sign saying, Chevy Rock Car Sales, they were surrounded by Rastafari car salesmen trying to sell them a Plymouth and a doobie.

That sign is an important American landmark; it guided our Puritans through fog and rain and the confusion caused by vintage GPS (Guiding Puritans at Sea) units.

Today, Chevy Rock can be found by looking for the stoned Puritan air dancers, which, like the Puritans, have no distinguishing male or female characteristics, although they do sport the colors of the Rastafari.

After a short prayer of thanks for a safe landing, the Puritans smoked the doobies that were offered to them by these salesmen in colorful shirts. The doobies had been arranged on platters with stuffed turkeys and candied yams, which was fortunate because the Puritans were suddenly extremely hungry.

The Puritans did take a bunch of test drives around New England. They loooved everything they saw; the quaint towns and farms, the little boutiques full of macrame wall hangings. They drove really slowly though, so when they returned from the test drives they refused to buy any cars, thinking the cars couldn’t go very fast.

For hundreds of years after this, they would receive invitations to Memorial Day Car Events to buy the latest 1630 model of the Pilgrim, the first car to run on maize. This car had an on board GPS, which was severely lacking; it didn’t have directions to Texas, Montana, or Louisiana, not to mention Canada, or Ikea, which impacted our country’s furniture choices for years to come. Everyone had to build dressers without directions written in Swedish, the official language of furniture.

During test drives, Puritans hit all the New England drive through restaurants. These were early versions of the ones we are familiar with today. The restaurants had corn on the cob, maize, which is fluffy corn stuck into vases, bean dishes, and fried squash.

The Puritans had a raging case of the munchies and quickly introduced meat and boiled vegetables to their adopted land. The McPuritan Burger, a chaste piece of meat without buns or ‘special sauce’, looked suspiciously like a figgy pudding. (Figgy Pudding was the name of the first Puritan rock group.)

Puritans didn’t understand their compulsion to eat, and thought that God was testing them, just as they, the Puritans, were testing the devilishly slow cars. (Puritans are the people responsible for the All You Can Eat Buffet and the senior dinner hour, which begins just after lunch, at 4:30 in the afternoon.)

There was also a lot of unexpected hilarity in church, leading many Puritans to be kicked out of the first settlements for giggling during the service and laughing at the clothes their neighbors were wearing.

Puritans, who were alarming the local constabulary by swaying on their feet while they tried to get their equilibrium back after months at sea, were disturbed by Rastafari vibrations.

Vibrations, even positive ones, made Puritans fall down.

The Rastafari, tired of trying to sell cars to a bunch of stoned cheapos, were totally going to settle America for the early settlers, but kept putting it off. They preferred to hang out at the settlement watching the New England Bowl on big screen TV, and eating chicken wings.

They really had trouble colonizing stuff.

As a result of being mellow, the Rastafari didn’t create a formal religion until 1930. They were full of peace and love, as were the Puritans when they weren’t trying to get rid of anyone who didn’t believe what they believed. The Puritans tried to include the Rastafari in their fledgling democracy, but finally declared, “There are limits, y’know.”

And that was that.

The Rastafari, in their turn, were alarming the Puritans with their beliefs. Their divinity is an emperor named Haile Salassie. When the Puritans saw how mellow the Rastafari were, they told them it was Haile Unlikely they would ever travel any further west than Cleveland, and that they, the Puritans, would wait for the Great Westward Movement and faster cars to get to California, where they could eat granola and take off their silly clothes.

They didn’t care for Rastafari dread locks either, but what they failed to realize was that after months of not being able to wash their hair, they too, would have dread locks. This is why they wore bonnets and hats, to hide their dirty hair.

The Rastafari religion coincided with the Great Depression.

The Rastafari knew that doobies would make the era Haile Bearable, except for not having enough food. Doobies would not make that any easier, but smoking them would keep people calm while they waited in long bread lines.

So, the Rastafari and the doobie had many roots in the settling of America, especially the Thanksgiving holiday.

At this traditional American feast we gather with our families and friends, smoke a celebratory doobie, get Haile Happy, decide our family isn’t so bad after all, and then eat a LOT of food.

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