Someone asked me over this past weekend how my retirement was going.  I mumbled something vague that things were going well, but truth be told, after all these days, I really have only accomplished a fraction of what I wanted to accomplish.  

    Sure, I have been relaxing, reading a stack of books that I have collected over the years, and some new ones, too.  I worked a part-time job at the local historical museum, which was a great opportunity to learn a lot about local history.  The area has had a human presence for 12,000 years.  This is important to me.  I want to belong to the human race. I want to matter in some small way. 

     When I was pursuing my post-baccalaureate studies in history, our professors explained that history must be studied from the perspective of its era.  We should NOT place modern sensibilities on the actions of the past.  But while working at the museum, I became aware of the modern concept of "radical empathy". It bothers me that the word empathy -a very good feeling to have- needed to have a modifier. The idea of understanding the feelings and motivations of a culture or historical time within their own frame of reference is an important way to understand the history.  Adding a modifier to empathy taints understanding of history and distorts knowledge of those events.  

    I enjoyed my time at the museum.  I thought the administrators were very passionate about the preservation of the history of the area. I was struck by the fact that there were very few noted historical buildings in the area.  Current recorded history goes back to 1805 when Lewis and Clark first rowed to the Columbia Cascades.  White settlement started in the 1840s and flourished in the 1850s and 60s.  There are very few structures left from those days, for a variety of reasons. 

     One main reason is that in the early 20th century there were forest fires that came through and burned some of the existing structures. There was also a flood around the turn of the century (20th).  Also, there was a desire, or thought to upgrade all that was old.  There was so much that has been lost.