For Va., Half a Holiday Loaf

"Few Americans remember much about Berkeley," Bush said yesterday. "They don't know the story of the Berkeley Thanksgiving."

Enter New Jersey native and children's author Lisa Suhay.

When Suhay moved to Virginia Beach five years ago, her children came home from school with tales of Virginia's first Thanksgiving. She was incensed and set out to prove that their teachers were wrong. Instead, she found out that they were right. So she wrote a children's book about the experience. In it, a little boy who discovers the truth about the first Thanksgiving being in Virginia celebrates with ham. He sets about starting a petition to get the president of the United States to pardon not just a turkey, as the president has every year for 60 years -- Bush plans to pardon two turkeys today -- but also a pig. Thus, the book, "Pardon Me, It's Ham, Not Turkey."

Suhay's 8-year-old son wanted to know why they couldn't do the same thing.

So they did.

More than 6,000 people from across the state have signed a petition to get Bush to pardon a pig today. Suhay even found a pig to pardon, an 80-pound spotted pig named Ginny, who resides at Frying Pan Farm Park in Herndon.

Suhay set up a Web site, http://pigpardon.com, and traveled the state all year, holding pig kissing contests and enticing various local officials to pardon the pig. Jim Cosgrove even wrote a country song. ("Pig pardon in the Rose Garden/Wouldn't that be great? Pig pardon in the Rose Garden/Let's set that story straight.") And with every e-mail of support, she hounded White House officials.

"The timing is just right," Suhay said. "It's the Jamestown 400th anniversary. It's the 60th anniversary of the turkey pardon. And it's the Year of the Pig. As a matter of fact, President Bush was born in the Year of the Fire Pig. So that's supposed to bring all kinds of good luck."

As part of her Virginia First Thanksgiving/Pig Pardon campaign, Suhay faxed White House officials the Nov. 4 op-ed piece written by Baliles. They called her a week later asking for more historic details.

The next day, Bush announced that he'd be going to Berkeley to make his first ever Thanksgiving address.

Suhay continued to press officials about a pig pardon. President John F. Kennedy pardoned a ferret named Mr. Magoo, she said, and if his legacy could survive that, surely Bush's would survive a pardon for a pig.

"We're not saying don't pardon the turkey. We're just asking for equal time," Suhay said. "It's not like this is some slippery slope where they'll be asked to pardon a zebra next year."

So will Bush pardon the pig?

"The president is going to continue the historic tradition of pardoning a turkey," said White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore.

No pig?

"No. He's focused on the turkey."

Still, after all of yesterday's hoopla, Virginia's Thanksgiving may indeed be more widely recognized as first. But a century of Massachusetts tradition will be hard to supplant, even at Berkeley Plantation, where turkey biscuits with cranberry were served yesterday. Not a ham in sight.