The great river

The great river

It is my desire to share something with my neighbors in the Daily American community.

I describe myself as a student of history. Using the knowledge, I have learned, I think, talk and revere the subject of my studies. I use the word student for a reason. No one can learn/know enough about history therefore; I am still learning.

For this piece I will use the course of a great river to illustrate my view of history. The Mississippi Missouri is the good example of this concept. As with any river, it starts in some no name field as a spring, a rivulet. It grows in size and power in its search for the sea. Once it starts it does not stop and its beginnings, its path, is studded with falls in which the water races and with sloughs and backwaters, not so much. Each of these hiccups, in the historical sense, I equate with wars, upheavals in the path of history. The sloughs and backwaters are calmer times, but the water is moving still. In the words of the popular song, mostly it just keeps rolling along.

I am not so presumptuous or Jingoistic to imply that a river as vast as the Mississippi is the United States, not hardly. There is, however, an incident that I call as the birth of the United States. The earthquake that caused Reelfoot Lake signifies our birth. Everything above that is world history.

We cannot ignore the existence of that rather large part of our history. Every drop adds to the whole. We could not have the whole without it. The passing of each drop can be recorded; with some degree the future can be predicted, only predicted. A duck swimming by will change the river or history.

We must teach history at home and at school. The old saying is that history repeats itself. That is wrong. History does not tell us what will happen. History tells us what can happen. In these times, or any other, please pay attention.

Edward W. Tarker

Berlin