David Lowenthal wrote a book in 1985 called The Past is a Foreign Country. It's a wonderful book describing history , memory and reliquary amongst other things ; plus the desire to relive or collect the past. One of our daughters, two of our granddaughters and the pianist and I , made apple cider , a day in time past, from some of the good Gravenstein windfalls. We made 30 quarts of juice heated 200 degrees to pasteurize.
Our press is a 30 year old hand crank and our routine was long established. The design of the press is probably hundreds of years earlier. The apple mash makes good compost. We have a country kitchen and we press on the grass outside the kitchen door so we are neat and don't make a mess. This link to the past is lived by us in a real sense. The soft ware we call a brain, somewhere, has a face book page that records my father's farm where he grew up, and my grandfather's orchard. It is indelible and structural. My granddaughters, as sure as the sun rises tomorrow, will one day press their own apples in their own orchard.
After all that cider pressing, we went to an old folks home after church the next day. Some are blind and some have short term memory, but they respond to the old chestnuts we sang in the past that a long term memory always allows to reappear. Old ones like "Jesus loves me , this I know" , but now modified for oldsters as " Jesus loves me, this I know, though my hair is white as snow." . We try to get "With it " ! They also like " In the garden. " I liked that song too since both my mother's and dad's funeral's had that hymn at their request.
The old folks have intact long term memory. For them and for me, the past is not a foreign country. These linkages to the past for me are evocative of the connection to my grandparents and my parents. I do not long for the two-holer, or the town pump, or the kerosene lamp, nor do I wish to see flypaper any more. But I don't believe the past is a foreign country.
Our press is a 30 year old hand crank and our routine was long established. The design of the press is probably hundreds of years earlier. The apple mash makes good compost. We have a country kitchen and we press on the grass outside the kitchen door so we are neat and don't make a mess. This link to the past is lived by us in a real sense. The soft ware we call a brain, somewhere, has a face book page that records my father's farm where he grew up, and my grandfather's orchard. It is indelible and structural. My granddaughters, as sure as the sun rises tomorrow, will one day press their own apples in their own orchard.
After all that cider pressing, we went to an old folks home after church the next day. Some are blind and some have short term memory, but they respond to the old chestnuts we sang in the past that a long term memory always allows to reappear. Old ones like "Jesus loves me , this I know" , but now modified for oldsters as " Jesus loves me, this I know, though my hair is white as snow." . We try to get "With it " ! They also like " In the garden. " I liked that song too since both my mother's and dad's funeral's had that hymn at their request.
The old folks have intact long term memory. For them and for me, the past is not a foreign country. These linkages to the past for me are evocative of the connection to my grandparents and my parents. I do not long for the two-holer, or the town pump, or the kerosene lamp, nor do I wish to see flypaper any more. But I don't believe the past is a foreign country.
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