Mine The Elderly

[rtraverdavis]

I am thankful that keeping a diary was so much more common in the years of the westward expansion and exploration. Folks back then could give an amazing snapshot of daily life with very few words. I've spend countless hours reading old accounts in search of bighorn sheep information. Below is one of my favorite passages from the diary of George A. Jackson, 27 years before Colorado was a state.

That’s pretty neat. Had to look up corcajou. An old name for wolverine. Wild stuff.

 

[Irrelevant]

Maybe I, in the throes of fauxstalgia, overvalue that knowledge and it's mostly all fluff and there are no new big lessons to learn. It doesn't feel that way, though.

I've pondered this a time or two as well. I think we all, our at least those of us whom worship at the alter of knowledge, seek and long for a variety both intimate and novel that is difficult to acquire; that you can't gain through a quick Google search. There's inherent value there that is absolutely more than fluff. It has substance and intrinsic worth that connecting to a new wifi router simply does not.

However, and before i start I'll say I've been more guilty than anyone else I know, if you get to know some of these people as they transition from "doing it" to telling "stories about it", I've always found the shine wears off a bit. Not that they're weren't tough, or smart, or incredibly capable, but that they were also idiots, fools, bull shitters, and even, at times, questionable characters. They were patently wrong just like the blow hards of today.

I'm not saying that is true for any specific person, your wife's great grandmother, or anyone else's special person. Just that they were all still humans too, warts, flaws, sins, and all.

 

[noharleyyet]

 

[Nameless Range]

I've pondered this a time or two as well. I think we all, our at least those of us whom worship at the alter of knowledge, seek and long for a variety both intimate and novel that is difficult to acquire; that you can't gain through a quick Google search. There's inherent value there that is absolutely more than fluff. It has substance and intrinsic worth that connecting to a new wifi router simply does not.

However, and before i start I'll say I've been more guilty than anyone else I know, if you get to know some of these people as they transition from "doing it" to telling "stories about it", I've always found the shine wears off a bit. Not that they're weren't tough, or smart, or incredibly capable, but that they were also idiots, fools, bull shitters, and even, at times, questionable characters. They were patently wrong just like the blow hards of today.

I'm not saying that is true for any specific person, your wife's great grandmother, or anyone else's special person. Just that they were all still humans too, warts, flaws, sins, and all.

Yeah, I am not necessarily thinking of their "wisdom" being of a markedly higher quality. Particularly generally.

That said, I do wonder if there are lessons in their stories. The family of the gentleman I referenced above was a part of bringing elk back to this neck of the woods, and now every year they get miles of fence torn down by elk in an "over objective" district. That's one guy seeing it all. There's a perspective there.

When he built his house in the 50s, it was the first new structure in Clancy, MT in decades. Can you imagine any part of the west remaining unchanging for 30 years? There were outposts back then in beautiful places, vestiges of mining dried up, and nobody in this country looked to them as desirable - and now we are overrun.

The construction of the interstate -this country's last large scale use of eminent domain - was incredibly disruptive. I think that is fascinating and the stories of how people responded to it as well.

He was a legislator during Montana's 1972 Constitutional Convention. Cosponsored our first Stream Access bill. Etc.

I felt like I gleaned new ways of looking at things from all those stories and more. It's hard for me to quantify it though, or kind of state some sort of ROI. Ultimately I just like to geek out on the layers that were laid down before I got here and I think many of those stories are approaching a permanent inaccessibility and that thought gives me a panic.

 

[Irrelevant]

Yeah, I am not necessarily thinking of their "wisdom" being of a markedly higher quality. Particularly generally.

That said, I do wonder if there are lessons in their stories. The family of the gentleman I referenced above was a part of bringing elk back to this neck of the woods, and now every year they get miles of fence torn down by elk in an "over objective" district. That's one guy seeing it all. There's a perspective there.

When he built his house in the 50s, it was the first new structure in Clancy, MT in decades. Can you imagine any part of the west remaining unchanging for 30 years? There were outposts back then in beautiful places, vestiges of mining dried up, and nobody in this country looked to them as desirable - and now we are overrun.

The construction of the interstate -this country's last large scale use of eminent domain - was incredibly disruptive. I think that is fascinating and the stories of how people responded to it as well.

He was a legislator during Montana's 1972 Constitutional Convention. Cosponsored our first Stream Access bill. Etc.

I felt like I gleaned new ways of looking at things from all those stories and more. It's hard for me to quantify it though, or kind of state some sort of ROI. Ultimately I just like to geek out on the layers that were laid down before I got here and I think many of those stories are approaching a permanent inaccessibility and that thought gives me a panic.

Again I can't disagree with you, those are valuable stories. I'm jealous.

My layers are less rose like more rotten oniony. Hence my pessimistic outlook on past.

I come from a small town, that used to be much larger, then shrank with the decline in timber along with failing orchards (the first examples I know of "climate change" induced impacts as they were non-irrigated cherry orchards); a town that is just now "recovering" thanks to tourism, though no one I know would ever characterize it in a positive light. I would be 4th generation in that town should I return, which I won't, hell, I can't afford to. My youth was spent tagging along with my grandparents every afternoon after school, Sunday-driving, looking for mushrooms, berries, elk, or just some wildflowers. My grandma sitting shotgun, a steady stream of location induced stories gently flowing from her like a clear brook, while by almost mute grandfather, a Swiss immigrant, idled the truck down various dirt roads slow enough to road hunt morels, and my sister and I riding in the back or between them on the bench seat soaking in more than I ever thought I was. Now when I go back it doesn't matter where I go I realize it's all one heart break story after another, dumb real estate transactions, fires, drugs, alcohol, death, things worst than death. There are no feel good stories, just piles of regret and markers of those that died too young, those that got out and those that should have but didn't. The stories vary between tragedy and travesty, with many centered around faceless antagonists, nameless regulations, all missing any self-accountability or responsibility. When I look at the past, even my own grandparents, whom in many ways defined me and still represent much of what I think when I think of morality, honesty, and hard work, I don't necessary see something to hold on a pedestal as some form of altruistic truth or long lost enlightened wisdom, but more of something that should be remembered simply so that we don't do that again. So that history doesn't have to repeat itself.

 

[TOGIE]

think of the stories to be told by the elderly in 50-80 years...

"i danced my half naked ass on tik tok until i couldn't see straight, millions of people watched. oh the sexist things i was called. i never made a dime, until i discovered onlyfans, that is. those sure were the times. my oh my, what i would give to go back"

 

[Oak]

think of the stories to be told by the elderly in 50-80 years...

"i danced my naked ass on tik tok until i couldn't see straight, millions of people watched. oh the sexist things i was called. i never made a dime, until i discovered onlyfans, that is. those sure were the times. my oh my, what i would give to go back"

I’ll be keeping that all myself, thank you.

 

[MT_elk]

Thanks for sharing this. Some of my fondest memories are listening to my grandparents tell stories about farming and ranching. Some that were almost unbelievable.
Definitely a different world we live in and changing every day. We call is progress, but I'm not so sure....