I am sitting on a grave and writing to you
I am sitting on a grave and writing to you in the future. The grave of my Great Grandfather is a depression on a hill. The cemetery is old enough for white America, but really only a second of history away. I am writing to you because I will soon enough be in a grave a few feet away myself. Already I can feel my time passing and there is, was so much to do.
I have been archiving pictures of the family. They are pictures that cover almost one hundred years. The images are much more powerful to me than other evidence of their lives. The work they have done is here, the tools are still here, I am keeping them and you may also if you find relevance in your past. But the pictures are a glimpse of what they looked like when they were alive. It is all we have that shows us the conditions and manner of their lives. I look at the pictures and I wonder what are you thinking? The children are captured as they grow at stages and they get older and then old and no more.
To say no more is an understatement, if I were to have a fire they would be gone save for their living legacy, a precarious tribute at best. The family struggled through many paths to unite here and become my generation. Some of them founded America, some of them jumped ship and some of them virtually slithered their way here. History’s ultimate punishment is exclusion, history’s only reward is notation. My interest is for the living as the dead have no stake in the outcome. I want to make it easier for my great grandchildren to divine their origins than it has been for me.
I envision a picture of my current family that is accompanied by their own story. I want the future to have more than a crumbling picture. I don’t condemn the people in the photos for their sparse legacy, they had to work at living. One picture shows two boys who may be twelve years old, and they are loggers. Not play dress up loggers, but small agile slaves who where expendable and expected to “pull their weight” in iron around trees that dwarfed full grown men
The original inhabitants of this area did not survive. I am searching for their records also. So far I have a few paragraphs of descriptions. They were fierce, their neighbors powerful slave traders, they were few in number, and spoke a unique language for this area. They died out in 1829-31 of malaria, up to 90% of them. And the rest were removed by the military before the first white settlers arrived. There have been no descendents laying claim to this valley in any way.
My other Great Grandfather’s fishing tackle box held a stone scraper. In one hundred years this valley went from the Stone Age, to the Industrial Age with not a single descendent of the original inhabitants. Nowhere in America was the replacement of the native people as efficient, effortless and complete.
I am editorializing what should be an objective account of facts, so be it bub. The great immigration stopped here for many travelers. I can tell you why, it is a great place to live. There is some work involved, but modern life has eliminated most of that really. We are left with an agreeable climate and a beautiful forest. That’s all I need.
The graveyard is a place that I can go and take the dog Gracie. We don’t bother anybody there.
I have been archiving pictures of the family. They are pictures that cover almost one hundred years. The images are much more powerful to me than other evidence of their lives. The work they have done is here, the tools are still here, I am keeping them and you may also if you find relevance in your past. But the pictures are a glimpse of what they looked like when they were alive. It is all we have that shows us the conditions and manner of their lives. I look at the pictures and I wonder what are you thinking? The children are captured as they grow at stages and they get older and then old and no more.
To say no more is an understatement, if I were to have a fire they would be gone save for their living legacy, a precarious tribute at best. The family struggled through many paths to unite here and become my generation. Some of them founded America, some of them jumped ship and some of them virtually slithered their way here. History’s ultimate punishment is exclusion, history’s only reward is notation. My interest is for the living as the dead have no stake in the outcome. I want to make it easier for my great grandchildren to divine their origins than it has been for me.
I envision a picture of my current family that is accompanied by their own story. I want the future to have more than a crumbling picture. I don’t condemn the people in the photos for their sparse legacy, they had to work at living. One picture shows two boys who may be twelve years old, and they are loggers. Not play dress up loggers, but small agile slaves who where expendable and expected to “pull their weight” in iron around trees that dwarfed full grown men
The original inhabitants of this area did not survive. I am searching for their records also. So far I have a few paragraphs of descriptions. They were fierce, their neighbors powerful slave traders, they were few in number, and spoke a unique language for this area. They died out in 1829-31 of malaria, up to 90% of them. And the rest were removed by the military before the first white settlers arrived. There have been no descendents laying claim to this valley in any way.
My other Great Grandfather’s fishing tackle box held a stone scraper. In one hundred years this valley went from the Stone Age, to the Industrial Age with not a single descendent of the original inhabitants. Nowhere in America was the replacement of the native people as efficient, effortless and complete.
I am editorializing what should be an objective account of facts, so be it bub. The great immigration stopped here for many travelers. I can tell you why, it is a great place to live. There is some work involved, but modern life has eliminated most of that really. We are left with an agreeable climate and a beautiful forest. That’s all I need.
The graveyard is a place that I can go and take the dog Gracie. We don’t bother anybody there.
posted by Oregon American | 11:30 AM
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