Sketch from the Hysterical Society Gig
Most of you pioneers wouldn’t recall it, but I came with the mizzus to a few Historical Society meetings nearly 3 decades ago. She stuck it out. And I lit out. It was like Happy Hour at the Home. Tea and decaf coffee and plenty of little cakes and cookies. A lot of talk about so and so who homesteaded the flood plain and whozit who married whatshername, you know, the family out by the gitcheegumee farm, the one next to the old Florence School. Most of the history was generally geneological.
I remember some 90 year old gal had moved here from New England by way of the South and she said, you know what, all this talk about pioneers and who’s been here the longest and whose family’s got bragging rights, it’s a lotta Hooey, you ask me. My family lived where they’re at 300 years and I’m the first one with sense enuff to move away.
We all got old family trees last I looked, nothing to get too proud about there. I’ll probably live my years out on the South End and I suppose someday they’ll put a plaque up at the South End Historical Pole Building Museum: here was a man who didn’t have sense enuff to explore further than Elger Bay. That’s why we made him honorary Mayor of the South End.
History isn’t out in the cemetery, I know that. It’s figuring out why the town dried up or the farms played out or the timber got cut down and how what was THEN is still pulling on us NOW. What Stanwood BECOMES is because of what Stanwood WAS.
Course on the South End, history’s about half mystery. Most of the family trees have fallen off the bluff. Won’t be long the only history’s gonna be the outrageous whoppers the Band’s telling. Trouble with that is, they didn’t stick to tea and decaf coffee, so it’s juiced up plenty more than some of you genuine historians might like.
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