Home Sweet Home! by The Pioneer Woman
4 years ago
18 August, 2008
Fleeting Days of Summer
Or is it Fleeing?
I've got less than a week left of my internship. It wasn't really at all what i expected (surprise, surprise! i often do try to live life without any expectations at all, but i've found that it falls flat. here's to being wrong!).
As far as the logistics of running an archive, and helping people with research, i'm really no further than i was before. However, i've learned a bit about running a business, and the types of relationships that exist between bosses and employees. An academic library doesn't need to make money. A historic park does. This means that the organization and hierarchy of the staff is much more important. It means that the work done is not only "for posterity" but must have some (relatively) immediate purpose and value. It means that we can't just apply for another grant or scholarship, but must make do with what we have and must concentrate out efforts on that which will have the greatest public interests.
GSRing has also been (much as i am loathe to admit it) a good experience for me. This may sound strange, but it is the first instance in which i have been able to relate to people as an adult - an equal. In the park offices i am an intern; at Sunday School and in choir i am the youngest by two decades; when living with my parents i am the Pastor's Daughter; at school i am a student. Of course there are always "peers" but that's not quite the same thing. I expect i shall tire of it soon - there are definite advantages to being young and ignorant. The new people being trained put this feeling into sharp relief - both elderly, and rather slow (dunno if it's fear of computers or what) - and i became a voice of experience (by some strange coincidence, i also saw buttercups buzzing after bees).
I also learnt that i find 18th-20th century history rather prosaic. People would exclaim at how old an 18th century artifact was, and all i could think was "Wow, that's only a couple hundred years old!" Or they would be looking at a photograph from the late 19th century, and while i was exclaiming over what a recent process photography was, they would be like "Dude! it's in black and white!" It's just... American colonialism has nothing on European Medievalsim, i'm sorry.
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I wonder how many will recognize the reference to "The World Turned Upside Down" - even after they read this comment. :-)
ReplyDeleteAmericans do not realize, not in the depths of their being, just how YOUNG this country is. It distorts our sense of history in many ways, blinding us to the follies and dangers of our choices. But it also opens our eyes to possibilities that older countries, oppressed by the weight of their years, cannot see.
Sometimes I wonder if part of the antipathy towards the US in Europe is less because of our power and prosperity and more because it is attached to youth and ignorance.
(EBV, please put me out of my misery and tell me where the reference to The World Turned Upside Down is...) I know this has to do with Cromwell's hatred of celebrating Christmas, but that's about it...
ReplyDeleteI think we are despised for a lot of reasons. Our politics aren't helping much, as the war is unpopular in many countries, but that is just one small facet of the problem. Certainly our comparative youth and tendency toward xenophobia -- or rather, our lack of interest in other countries -- is another reason; our wealth and extravagant lifestyles don't endear us to people in poorer countries. And a lot of people just plain envy us our cheerful prosperity and our nonchalant acceptance of this as only our due.
And I am scared stiff of my computer!
"If buttercups buzzed after the bees, if ships were on land and churches on seas, if ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows, if cats could be chased into holes by the mouse, if mothers sold their babies to gypsies for half a crown, if summer were spring and the other way 'round, then all the world would be upsidedown."
ReplyDeleteMarshymallow beat me to it - the lyrics were popularized by Burl Ives and a couple others and vary from the broadsheet published in protest to Cromwell's desire to ban merriment at Christmas in 1649. (BTW, Cromwell wasn't opposed to celebrating Christmas, just to making merry when doing so. Odd lot, Puritans - overt happiness was considered ungodly.)
ReplyDeleteThere is some discussion as to whether or not this tune was actually played at Yorktown, 1781 when Cornwallis surrendered. I suspect the tune was played, but that (as is the way with folk songs) the lyrics known by the colonists were different from both Burl Ives' and the 17th century versions. We heard these lyrics years ago on an album titled Songs of Rebels & Redcoats produced by the Nat'l Geographic Society I believe. I've sung them often to my children in the years since, including Marshymallow.
Well, there are two mysteries solved right there: I remember some, but not all, of the lyrics to this song -- "The poor old cook / to the larder doth look / but there is no goodness to be found" are the words that spring to mind -- so now I know where that reference is from! And now I see how MM got some of her smarts and obvious love of learning.
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