songs & philosophies
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?” – lyrics recorded by Robert Burns.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
“I wish I were in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten.” – Daniel Decatur Emmett
As a fifth grader carefully shaping cursive letters for our daily penmanship exercise, I was often struck by the quotations we were copying. Like so many 80’s men, my fifth grade teacher was an eager early adopter to the computer, and had us doing simple coding the last period of the day, but first period was for penmanship and famous quotations – things he insisted would benefit us greatly in the digital age. We coped quotations from Rudyard Kipling, Robert Service, Ellen G. White, and Winston Churchhill. “Remember where you came from so you appreciate where you’re going,” he was fond of saying. The words ran over us like water, wearing grooves into our brains. Remember. Remember. Remember.
Only now as the American past faces deletions and revisions through the intense ethnocentrism of our current administration do I realize where the Santayana quote fails. Too many of us remember the past – but not everyone agrees on how far ‘past’ it should be.
rising behind you
softness from red soil, sunward
pasts wrenched from sharp bolls
