Monday, July 21, 2008

On vacation...


We are currently on a vacation in western Pa. I guess it is what you would call one of those "staycations." We are visiting relatives and also my husband is going on a job interview while we are here to help defray some of the gas cost. The drywallers should be done with my bedroom when we get back home. All that would be left to do in there is paint. I am very happy to sleep in a real bed last night and not one of those pull out couches.

Traveling like this gets your mind wondering. Every town has a story. Every person in a town has a story. Some people have many stories. In Johnstown PA, you can't go anywhere without learning something about the horrible Johnstown Flood (and the wonderful Steelers, of course.) It was very devastating, killing thousands of people in one day. They have two museums about it and the accounts of it plastered on walls all around town. I just wonder why people cling to the history of it so fiercely. It happened over 120 years ago. No one alive now would have remembered it. They fixed the dam. It does serve as a reminder to good dam maintenance for other cities with the same landscape problems, like just recently out west. The problem with that is that those people have probably never been to Johnstown.

I am not dissing on Johnstown. This behavior is natural. My question is only, why? Are we afraid to forget all the brave people? Maybe. I don't really remember the single people I learned about there. Only the devastation and loss of life. Maybe, it is just me.

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