ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Bush Visits Thanksgiving Site – In Virginia

By Sonja Barasic, Associated Press
Monday, November 19th, 2007

CHARLES CITY, Va. (AP) —As President Bush mingled with members of the crowd after his speech Monday on the grounds of Berkeley Plantation, a half-dozen girls scrambled over rows of chairs to reach him.

"Mr. President!" shrieked the girls, all members of Girl Scout Troop 898 from Mechanicsville.

He turned around and shook their hands. Then he took 12-year-old Lauren Cole's disposable camera, handed it to the "Secret Service dude" behind him and had the agent snap his picture with the girls, Cole said.

"I will never wash this hand again," Cole said afterward. "He's the best president in the world."

President Bush was at Berkeley Plantation to speak about Thanksgiving. The setting was fitting because Berkeley says it is the site of America's first official Thanksgiving - nearly two years before the Pilgrims and Indians celebrated the autumn harvest in New England.

While Americans remember that feast, "they don't know the story of the Berkeley thanksgiving," Bush said as he gave a little history lesson to the invitation-only crowd of several hundred.

When Capt. John Woodlief and his crew of 37 British settlers came upon the site on Dec. 4, 1619, they fell to their knees and read a proclamation stating that the day of their ship's arrival should be "yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."

The country's first 10 presidents all spent time at the plantation, and Abraham Lincoln visited Berkeley while Union troops were encamped there during the Civil War.

"As we look back on the story of Berkeley, we remember that we live in a land of many blessings," said the president, who encouraged Americans to show thanks by giving back, for example, through volunteering. Earlier Monday, he visited the Central Virginia Foodbank in Richmond, which sends millions of pounds of groceries to needy families each year.

Also during his brief speech, Bush singled out several people for recognition, including Liviu Librescu, who died trying to save his students during the Virginia Tech massacre.

"As a survivor of the Holocaust, Professor Liviu Librescu had seen the worst of humanity, yet through his sacrifice, he showed us the best," Bush said.

Berkeley Plantation sits on the banks of the James River. Anchored in the river behind the president as he spoke was a replica of the Godspeed, one of the three ships that in 1607 brought colonists to nearby Jamestown, America's first permanent English settlement.

Kathy Thornton, who often takes her American history students on field trips to Berkeley Plantation, sad she hoped the president's visit would highlight Virginia's role in history -and "inspire Virginians to be leaders again."

The Gloucester teacher noted that Virginia has been home to several presidents, but not recently.

Also in the crowd was Lisa Suhay, a Norfolk children's author who had tried to persuade the president to pardon a pig, as well as the traditional turkey, in recognition of the Berkeley thanksgiving - which may have included a small meal with bacon or ham.

Suhay tells the Berkeley story in her book "Pardon Me. It's Ham, Not Turkey." Nearly 7,000 people have signed her pardon petition on a Web site that is collecting donations for the nonprofit Federation of Virginia Food Banks.

Suhay said that right after the president's helicopter landed at Berkeley, a White House staffer walked over to her, handed her a letter signed by Bush and said, "Mrs. Suhay, the president wants you to have this."

"I was glad to see such a goodhearted effort to raise awareness of the history of Thanksgiving," the president wrote.

After the speech, Suhay briefly met the president, who leaned over and touched his forehead to hers and also gave her a high-five.

While the president did not pardon a pig, he did acknowledge Virginia's Thanksgiving history, plus he visited a food bank to underscore the problem of hunger.

"We had two wins out of three, really, and that's a lot to be thankful for," Suhay said.