The Lesson of History

Pursuing a vacuum around the house gives me plenty of time to think of things other than the task of chasing dust bunnies and other bits of random detritus. With little else to do I counted and have found that we have a total of 30 fully loaded bookcases scattered around the house. And I didn’t even count the desks, side tables and racks that hold a fair portion of our printed wealth. If we want to read fiction we go to the public library, but if our needs are for workable information we first start with the books in our own collection. Part of my enjoyable reading is history, literature telling me how others reacted in adversity and perhaps teaching me ways to deal with stress and the people who cause it in my life.

March 8, 1862 is a notable day in history in that the first recorded battle between two iron glad ships occurred. But there are other dates in that story that are important. On Dec 31, 1862 one of those two ships, the USS Monitor sank in a storm, not to be found until 1973, off Cape Hatteras in 235 feet of water. (As a side note the people who found the Monitor were looking for a WW II German submarine reported sunk in the area, proving that mayhem is an important part of history) In 2001, as part of the recovery process the ship’s engine was returned to shore where it spent the past few years in a pool of purified, alkaline water. Only recently have the conservators been able to drain the pool and start the task of cleaning the gunk of a century and half from the engine.

Now that’s just ho-hum history to lots of people, but to me it is a straight line connection with the past that made us what we are today. I’m envious of the conservator who uncovers a bronze engine valve, gleaming like new in all that accumulated muck and considers that the last person to touch that valve has made contact with a society he probably never imagined. That is the power of history that makes our collection of books, moving with us, wherever we go so valuable.

History teaches us by allowing us to make mistakes in the hope that we can learn from those mistakes and apply correction to our actions in the future. Looking around me I can see that the lessons of history are indeed our hope for the future…I can only hope we learn.