The Past is Another Country

I don't know who said that...about the past being another country. But it is pretty much true. That was brought home to me when I went to look at the exhibit called "Hidden Views" in the gallery here at the Fort Worth Central Library. It is material from our Genealogy and Local History Archives. It has been up for a few weeks now and I don't know for how much longer, but it does give one a notion of how much Fort Worth has changed through its long history.

One of the most fascinating little exhibits in it, to me, is the one that shows an example of how "exact copies" were made before photocopiers and no it wasn't by someone "copying" with pen and ink. It was more fascinating than that. You see, before the original document's ink had dried, a piece of very thin, very porous paper was pressed on top of it and...viola...there was one perfect copy. Of course, those copies on very thin very porous paper didn't last very long, they deteriorated and fell apart as the years passed. But, on display, here are some of the last reams of them bound together left.

You see how the past disappears so that things that once were commonplace because they were just part of every day, bit by bit, year by year, drop from existence and memory and record. They are gone to dust and we cannot even imagine what the world was like then, not really. Our recreations are piecemeal and patchy just like our memories.

I can vaguely remember a world without central air, sleeping out on screened in porches during the summer with loud turning fans sweeping hot air over me as I tried to sleep. Houses were built with large windows that opened for cross breezes.

I could go on, but I won't. Just come and see "Hidden Views" and wonder at that foreign country that is the past. It is endlessly interesting.