While it’s doing that - think about this:
“Can you tell anyone else the names of your great-great grand parents, where they were born, the names of their parents and their off-spring?”
If you cannot do this - do you really think that cut-loose-messenger, running amuck through your brain -desperately searching for the information on Who You Are - will be able to gather the truth about YOU?
OK. So we’re slumping a bit in our chair now. Go ahead, lift yourself back up and wrap your grey matter around this one.
“What do you know about the piece of land you live on right now? Yes, no matter where it is - or what it is. Whether you own it or not, can you tell another person the history - any history - even if it’s only 10 years old - about that piece of land?”
Hmm. 0 for 2 are we? Ah, I see, not everyone is in a state of ‘heritage shock’.
There’s are a small nugget forming in the far corner, who will attempt to expatiate - at least in part- the aging components forming the history of where they currently reside.
Those of you among that special group may well, also, harbor an informed sense of your own personal heritage.
To those of you who possess such rare treasures, we uncover our heads, bow low toward you in admiration and beseech of you only one thing:
“Pray tell us, How do you know these treasures? Can we too, acquire treasures of our past? ”
Please share with us your hopes, dreams - and yes, even fears, of connecting with your past. As well, if you have tips and details on how you have connected, directed or reconciled with the connections to your past - please, pass them on as well.
On Wednesday I will post the first in a series of Heritage Quotient Surveys. I will use the results of these surveys to direct my posts in this series on Heritage and Heritagekeepers and to build a better understanding of our collective Heritage Quotient (HQ) .
Thanks to all for your response and support and really look forward to your responses.
Alright, the Comment Lines are now open. I believe there will be a number of folks who will be anxious to see and hear how this topic progresses over the next few hours and days. None the least of which .. is ME!!
2 comments:
Those were great questions that have inspired me to pick up the phone and call my dad. I do know a little about the land I live on, or at least what it used to look like. It was a beautiful field of grass that was developed 23 years ago with 14 townhouses. In the last five years it has seen the addition of 33 more units while the rest of the town is gobbling up more open space.
PowderLover
PowderLover,
For a surety, it's comments such as yours, that remind me of why I love to write! And why I believe so strongly in the Outdoor Heritagekeeper Project.
Thank you for taking the time to comment and more importantly, for calling your dad. I can certainly imagine he enjoyed the call.
On the matter of dwindling country spaces - especially those we all knew as "Home Ground", it is sad how much of it is going under the developer's shovel. Large part of the Heritagekeeper Project is devoted to encouraging us all to record: written, photographs, audio, video, archival collections: those areas. Far too many are vanishing daily. If we don't record them, their value and their place along our heritage trace, they will be forgotten. And that, is a tragedy... I really don't want to see happen.
I gather from the 'link' to which PowderLover goes, you were (maybe still are) a resident of Steamboat Springs, CO. If so, then we both have heartstrings in shared GPS coordinates! I have not yet been to Steamboat, though my wife and I have been trying since 2002! Each time we've made the plans to go, another 'something' changed them. We are hoping to consummate that plan, finally, next fall.
We have, however, been extensively thoughout the North Park region. Walton and Cowdry are two of my favorite one-horse towns in the great state of CO. However, it's those amazing streams running through the NP that steal my imagination! Very, very nearly, that region came so close to being our home 12 years ago. A good deal of my allotment of heart-strings reside in that region from Saratoga, WY to Granby. So both North and Middle Park are very dear to us.
One of these days, hopefully before all of the beautiful land of the Yampa River on the west side of Rabbit Ear Range, is covered in condos and townhouses, we'll get to visit. My mantra is, Steamboat in '09, Youbetcha, It's Time' ". )
Thanks again for the comment. Thanks to you as well for a welcome refueling of my efforts. I certainly appreciated hearing that my words got the reaction for which they were written.
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