Looking at old family pictures the other day, I was struck with the outdated hairdos, formal postures and dress.
"Not something I'd want to wear and not the way I'd want to look today," I thought.
That was quickly followed by another thought. "Wait just a minute. Those are MY ancestors and that's the way they dressed and looked. What's wrong with that?"
All of us have had pictures taken we'd like to forget. Burn the negatives. Don't let anyone else see 'em. Tear 'em up or bury them deep in some old cardboard box out in the garage.
Asked to write the stories of our lives, but with the luxury of omitting some misadventures or people we'd just as soon forget or some embarrassing moments, would our stories really be complete? Mine certainly wouldn't.
But, it seems, as a nation, we're doing just that. We're tearing down statues, obliterating landmarks formerly thought to be important and trying to "dis-remember" people and events and their part in our national history.
Examples of this current trend are not hard to find. The American Library Association has dropped the name of Laura Ingalls Wilder from one of its awards. Yes, the lady who wrote "Little House on the Prairie," among others.
The association's "reasoning? "Her works reflect dated cultural attitudes toward indigenous people and people of color that contradict modern acceptance, celebration and understanding of diverse communities."
Pure "intellectual" B.S.! Ms. Ingalls wrote of America, using contemporary language and terms, portraying people and relationships as they were. Not as they are.
More? For years, people have put pressures on libraries of to get rid of some of Mark Twain's best works. "Racist," they loudly claimed. B.S., again! Possibly more than any other American writer, Twain used "word pictures" of contemporary life as he observed it to describe events and people. As they were! Twain was a reporter, describing life 150+ years ago.
But, bigots - and racists - there are. Two years ago, the Negro League's Baseball Museum in Kansas City was heavily vandalized by criminals demolishing important artifacts of another time in our history. They cut the main waterline, turned on the faucets and flooded the first and second floors, heavily damaging irreplaceable displays.
A few weeks earlier, an arsonist set fire to Satchel Paige's Kansas City home, also part of the Negro museum's collection. Burned to the ground.
While dissimilar in nature - one a crime, the other an example of attempted racially motivated obliteration - there is commonality. All were attempts to eradicate people and historic examples of other times when American life was different.
For the last few years, we've torn down statues of people and landmarks of the Confederacy. Yes, they reminded some of terrible times. But, they also represented historical importance to others. Part of our national story.
Someday, I suspect, we'll face demands to destroy statues and other artifacts related to settlement of the American West. Terrible times for some. Important history for others.
Imagine destruction of the Pearl Harbor site of the U.S. Arizona. If the "correction" zealots have their way, could happen.
This undertaking to "clean up" our national history is worrisome. None of us - individually or as a nation - is unblemished. In both cases, we're not terribly proud of all things said and done. But, in both, we're today's product of our backgrounds. All of our backgrounds. Our history is not complete without the good and the 'not-so-good.'
Run this out a hundred years. Will some well-meaning folks at that time try to erase our Trumpian era? Will they - as does the Texas School Board - have history books with omissions of "unacceptable" times?
"Unacceptable" to who? Or whom?
As a living, breathing contemporary, who's endured my share of national disasters, I certainly hope not.