Thanksgiving at par with Christmas

By: Engr. Edgar Mana-ay

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, USA – Thanksgiving Day celebration is a big deal in the United States almost as important as Christmas Day. It is a Thursday holiday throughout the nation followed by the so called “Black Friday,” a 24-hour national shopping day at 50% bargains.

On Thanksgiving, the Americans gather as a family to fellowship and bond over a predominantly turkey dinner. In an American family thanksgiving dinner, which this writer attended, lots of turkeys were roasted over and above the other various other menus. Children and their families came over for this once a year bonding with grandpa and grandma.

Celebrating Thanksgiving should not only be for the Americans but for all people of all races because despite all the hardships in life, there are still more blessings that we have received if we only pause for a moment and count them one by one. For the Bible in the Book of Psalms says: “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.”

It is different for the Americans, though. It is more than just thanking and counting of blessings, it is remembering of what they are now as a people because of the bravery and sacrifices of the first Americans (actually English people) that landed in Plymouth Rock aboard the Mayflower ship in 1620.

The Pilgrims as they were called at that time, with their leader William Bradford (there is a very old Bradford Church near Fuente Osmeña, Cebu City now declared as a heritage site) left their temporary homes in Leyland to escape the Church of England (the official church of the king of England) and its repressive policies. The Pilgrims felt that in order to remain “pure” in their religion, hence the word puritans, they sought a place as far as could be from the King of England and its official church.

These band of brave men and women, called Puritan separatists, were actually a minority of the group of Englanders fleeing persecution in England that sailed in the Mayflower, a gallant ship in our imagination but actually a small, rat-infested wooden tub. Many of the men and women, both separatists and non-separatists, died during the two-month voyage in the Mayflower.

Starvation greeted of what was left of the Pilgrims when they landed in 1620. They manage to plant corn, squash and beans from the seeds that they had brought and with the help of an English speaking Patuxet Indian named Squanto, the colonizers survived their first winter and experienced it first bountiful harvest and held its first thanksgiving. Squanto was caught by previous English marauders, brought to England as a slave and has escaped after years of captivity. It is ironic that Squanto was instrumental in saving the colony from other fierce Indian tribes and teaching the pilgrims the effective way of farming.

Recently, there are some toxic thoughts that aim to malign and downgrade the first thanksgiving celebration in America. Some say that it was the custom in England carried over to hold harvest festivals and that is just what the pilgrims did. Others say that the Pilgrims plundered graves of Indians for stored grains just to survive. It’s a long, long time ago (400 years to be exact) and it cannot be confirmed, but whatever it is, the fact remains that it was the Pilgrim Fathers who set the tradition of thanksgiving handed down from generation to generation until now. They have also set the divine and moral foundations for a strong American nation as attested by the inscription “In God We Trust” in the dollar bill. Sadly, nowadays, a few misguided Americans would like to erase that inscription.

Winter came in very early in Colorado Springs and is expected to last past Christmas season. For the past days there is a continuous snow blizzard piling up an average of 3 to 4 feet of snow everywhere. The government has to constantly plough to clear the roads of snow but the individuals will have to do the clearing of its own driveway in order for his vehicle to reach the road. Since the locals are already used to it, life goes on as usual, so despite a -10°C below zero temperature, outdoor work such as road repairs, building construction, plumbing goes on without letup.

The interest of this writer is NOT in the snow per se but how much water it supplies to the underground water resource of the locality. Since the Philippines is in the tropics, we receives bountiful rainfall at annual average of 80” per month but the average rainfall in Colorado is only 16 inches PER YEAR. But most mountain area gets 20” of snow pack per month and therefore 85% of snow melts accounts for the mighty Colorado river flow and very negligible from rainfall runoff. A snow pack is a buildup of snow in the mountains of Colorado as a result of storms in the Pacific Ocean.

At the present condition of a very conservative 0.8 meter thick snow blanketing the area where I live, and the resulting melted liquid is only 20% of the snow volume and we also assume an infiltration rate of the resulting snow melt at 70%. I had a 30-mile trip towards Denver observing areas where snow have melted and have NOT observed small canals and creeks flowing with water. The open spaces here are mostly left alone, hence no ground compaction. Besides, snow melts very slowly and so it is safe to assume an infiltration rate of 70% (the Tigum-Aganan watershed infiltration is only 8%). Therefore, for a given one square kilometer of ground surface covered by snow and based on the assumed parameters, the computed amount of water that will recharge the underground water resource is 112,000 cubic meter per sq. km. of snow covered area.

This is how some areas in Colorado Springs gets its abundant water; from underground through numerous deep wells just like what we have here at home at 160 ft. since we are beyond the water utility coverage. But the water utility gathers all snow melts in the mountain for its water source to supply its franchise area. Despite a semi arid climate, water underground is abundant because it is being recharged by snowmelt infiltration from snow pack in the mountains and low lands.