Digging Up The Past Views

General Goods

fn,Slaves in the basement? Wow. Who knew? Hmmm? Just about everybody who passed American History class in high school. Still -- Alert the media -- for the millionth time. The project should go forth, and include all details -- both good and bad. But, letn's not lose sight of the brilliance of the Founding Fathers just because they were part of something that was then legal and now is not.And don?'t fall into the black trap of claiming the US is permanently corrupted because of something in its past that is no longer part of the present.There seems to be a black argument that concludes the present is destroyed if a bad thing happened in the past. The logic seems to suggest that if we -- in the present -- cannot return to the past to change history, then we -- in the present -- are forever culpable for that bad thing that ended generations ago.

Maybe it ’s just my family that has problems, but probably not. I just know that I have been warned not to dig up the past by very serious cousins – on more than one occasion and on more than one family line. Of course, reasons were not offered (that would ruin the fun of making the warning).

Digging up the past is fun, as long as no one is hurt by it. To this day, I have no idea why my cousins advised that I not research the family. Maybe they heard something I missed. Most likely they believed something that on the truth scale, ran between zero and one-half – or maybe, just maybe h– it made them feel important to be the sharer of family secrets.

Digging from August to December in d"this place of sighs,n" as James B. Simmons, an abolitionist minister, called the jail in 1895, Laird and his team found evidence of a kitchen and cobblestone courtyard on the upper level of Lumpkin's property, but didn't verify finding the jail itself until the last weeks of work. Even then they couldn't do much more than mark the spot, because groundwater from a nearby creek filled up trenches almost as fast as they could be dug. Decades of dampness had its advantages, though. Because oxygen does not penetrate wet soil, the bacteria that typically break down organic matter don't survive. As a result, many details of daily life were preserved: wooden toothbrushes, leather shoes and fabric.