A friend of mine passed away earlier last year. He was in his 80s, but enjoyed reasonably good health—aside from bad knees. He had survived a German POW camp during World War II and I think every day after that experience was something of a gift to him. But what was particularly striking was how he kept up with technology right up to the end. Perhaps his years working as an electronics engineer made change and innovation a natural part of life. He knew computers inside and out and used to take astronomical images through his computerized telescope using a CCD camera and image processing software.
My point is that many of us stop learning at some stage, and forever after change scares us. It obviously doesn't need to be like that. The NJ history community—like history communities the world-over—trends towards the elderly. Many historical groups are peopled by folks who don't understand new technologies—and don't really care to. The trouble with that attitude, of course, is that the groups they run don't take advantage of the opportunities available to educate, inspire and attract new people to history.
There is something admittedly narcissistic to blogs and Facebook and the like. Does anyone really care what I had for breakfast? Yet, for better or worse, such technology is now a apart of American life. It is the province of the younger sets whom we would do well to reach—it's their history too. We dismiss all this techno-stuff at our peril.
And so, GSL enters the great "blogosphere," adding its voice to the din. I hope I'll have something worth saying and I hope you'll have thoughtful replies. This should be a place for dialog, for using the technology to its best advantage.
And by the way, I don't eat breakfast. It was trick question.
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In paragraph iv, page 166 of "A Puritan Heritage- The First Presbyterian Church in Horse-Neck (Caldwell, NJ), 1955, author Lynn G. Lockward writes, "At this same annual [parish] meeting, a committee consisting of Asher Crane, Mr. Tuttle, Dr. Maynard, Demas Harrison, Jr., and Moses P. Crane, was appointed, "to stake out the grounds for the setting out of trees around the Church." At the call of the committee in November a group of Parishioners gathered with their ox teams, and having dug up a number of choice specimens of native elm trees, had a real "Arbor Day" celebration adorning the church grounds, which today witness their labor of love. To add to the festivities of the day, "Governor" Provost invited them all to a sumptuous lunch."
ReplyDeleteIn 1955 Lockward observed that most of the original trees had succumbed to "disease, old age and the march of progress" and today none of those plantings remain. The church continues to use plants and trees to beautify its landscape, but nobody uses ox teams any more! The Provost pond has been drained and the Provost estate transformed into the Caldwell Municipal Hall, Community Center and, behind them, the "Kiwanis Oval", a sports field.