Thanksgiving is one of those things that are purely American. Like jazz, fuzzy blacklight posters and the hamburger, Thanksgiving is one of those things that people around the world try to imitate, but it never works out quite right. One of the reasons that the holiday is so deeply imbedded is that George Washington was the first president to proclaim it. Thanksgiving has been with us since the beginning and no less a personage than the Father of the country thought it was a worthy way to spend a Thursday in November.

Though his ranking as an intellectual force in the American Revolution has been misunderestimated, the words of Washington are always worth reading and pondering. That’s why politicians continue to quote the man. Well, that and the fact that Washington is one of only two Presidents that are consistently held to be worth a toot. So reading President Washington’s original statement about Thanksgiving is a surprising and rewarding and even depressing thing to do.

In those very early days of the United States, the first President and Congress thought it was important to set aside a day to give thanks and also ask for forgiveness. No mention of the pilgrims. Certainly no mention of eating Benjamin Franklin’s choice for a national bird, and practically nothing about helium-filled balloons in the shape of cartoon cats being pulled through New York City.

The thanks part we remember. And we can safely ponder and pounce on turkeys since the tryptophanic myth of turkey-induced narcolepsy has been debunked. But overlooking the forgiveness part seems a mystery in a country so obsessed with its own guilt complex. Maybe the giving thanks bit is more popular because it’s more universal. Even atheists can find someone or at least something they can give their thanks to. Not God in the Charlton Heston sense, but at the very least to Apollo in the most solar sense, for providing just the right temperature range for water.

By focusing on the giving thanks part exclusively though, we commit another act of overlookery. Washington and Congress thought it was important that the whole nation spend part of a singular day to ask whatever deity (or Earth goddess or Vishnu or Carl Sagan- whomever) to “render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us)…” How many people are going to spend even a split second thanking Isis or whomever for the blessings of our national government? Not many. But that’s where the depressing part of Washington can make a quick 180-degree turn.

The first President was careful to not ask us to give thanks for our government, but to ask for any kind of supernatural help available to make it better. Call it Yahweh, Odin or Ra, but call it and ask for any guidance. Washington leaves room for hope that the government can be something to be proud of, instead of something to snicker at or be scammed by. The success (so far) of the American experiment is something that’s eminently worthy of thankfulness. But since it’s the rarity of the thing, as usual, that makes it so valuable, it’s worth taking a couple of extra seconds to ask for its continued welfare.