generalmachineryco
- Nov 21, 2022
- 2 min read

Happy Thanksgiving

In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, General Machinery will be closed Thursday, November 24th and Friday, November 25th. We will resume normal business hours on Monday, November 28th.

As always, we will have someone on call to assist you with your emergency needs.

Fun Thanksgiving Facts:

Butterball has had a Turkey Talk-Line open for nearly 40 years.

If you find yourself with a million questions about cooking your turkey and Google is too overwhelming, reach for the phone, because the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line is real and there to help you. Open to U.S. and Canadian homes every November and December, the unique hotline, which first opened in 1981, is also available to take questions through online chat and email. Plus, there are Spanish-speaking experts! Each year, Butterball experts answer more than 100,000 questions for thousands of households.

"Jingle Bells" was originally a Thanksgiving song.

"Jingle Bells," the classic Christmas song written by James Lord Pierpont in 1857, wasn't meant to be about Christmas. Originally titled "One Horse Open Sleigh," the ditty was meant to be sung on Thanksgiving. When it was reprinted in 1859, however, the name was changed to "Jingle Bells, or the One Horse Open Sleigh," and was prescribed for Christmas.

About 50 million people watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade annually.

Approximately 50 million Americans tune in to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade each year. Another 3.5 million people view it in person, and roughly 10,000 participate—in non-pandemic years, at least. And though the parade doesn't begin until 9 a.m. ET, many spectators arrive as early as 6:30 a.m.—lining the streets of New York—to get a spot along the route.

George H.W. Bush's presidential "pardon" of a turkey was a joke of sorts.

The tradition of U.S. presidents receiving turkeys as gifts can be traced back to the 1870s, but it was Harry S. Truman who became the first to receive one from the Poultry and Egg National Board and the National Turkey Federation in 1947. And though the Truman Library & Museum disputes that he was the first to "pardon" a presidential turkey, a murky tradition of presidents receiving—but not eating—turkeys began. It continued under the administrations of Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan.

In 1989, following this tradition, the first official turkey "pardon" was granted by George H.W. Bush. With animal rights activists standing nearby, the president quipped that "this fine tom turkey…will not end up on anyone's dinner table, not this guy—he's granted a presidential pardon as of right now." The rest, as they say, is history.