Arnold Topp: Abstract Composition, from the portfolio "New European Graphics, Portfolio III: German Artists"
[Abstrakte Komposition, aus Bauhaus Mappe "Neue Europäische Graphik III: Deutsche Künstler"]
(1921)

"I couldn't hope to become a local while being Exiled there …"

Exiles arrive with little knowledge of the history of the place they're relegated. They remain contextless for a time. In some ways, their initial contextlessness never leaves them, for most of the local history could never have been captured in stories and books but needed living to comprehend. Even the written stories impart little meaning without some understanding of locations. Locations take considerable time to imprint on any newcomer who first tries to get from place to place and can't yet be bothered with history's subtler dimension. Later, an insipient disorientation settles over the Exile, and he seeks resolution. He asks questions, hears stories, and slowly starts comprehending.

Once we'd arrived in Colorado, I'd occasionally meet someone who claimed to have grown up there. These people seemed rare because much of the population originated somewhere else. During our stay, rumors claimed seven thousand people were migrating into the greater Denver area every month. The natives were largely dismayed by how their little towns had been rudely taken away to become teeming suburbs, most of them. Once a factory town of perhaps twenty thousand, little Golden exploded into a sprawl that spread in every conceivable direction. The town featured some history museums and places depicting earlier days: a stereotypical farmhouse with real chickens and walls covered in posters of fading Daguerreotypes. The history lessons slithered in, and over time, I came to understand better how the place had come about.

Golden's Lookout Mountain Road was partially built by Wild Bill Hickok's Wild West troupe members. In Denver, for performances that were blocked by the newspaper publisher, who was, for some reason, Bill's sworn enemy and refused to advertise Bill's shows, his performers were getting restless. Bill leased them out to help build road while waiting to perform. That incident left a little lore behind. There were dozens of colorful stories about Golden's rich gold rush past. The Coors family alone was the source of more than half the history there. I read a few books from the library, as I had also done when we moved into Takoma Park. I would never become a local, but without understanding founding history, I would forever be even more isolated than Being Exiled had already left me.

At home, I had sixty years of lived history and a wealth of history learned while living there. There was never any chance that I would ever manage to become wholly oriented to either Takoma Park or Golden. Still, I eventually became educated enough to compare notes with the locals, not all of whom were as interested in their own history as I ultimately had become. I treasure the almost-forgotten story. I ache to comprehend significances. Who was that person the park was named after, and what had they accomplished that warranted the designation? Without such incidental information, I felt as though I was moving through a meaningless landscape. It was instructive to learn how Takoma Park had once been the home to the world headquarters of the  Adventist Church. My hometown was next to an Adventist enclave, too, and several family members belonged to that church, so that bit of history helped me feel better oriented there.

We as a society tend to pay too close attention to the current news and not nearly enough on from wherever we've come. Past seems much more than mere prologue. The patterns expressed in earlier generations tend to resonate through ours, and those forces might seem like random variations unless we've attended to our history lessons. I find learning how things have always been more than just instructive. When confronted with choices, it seems unlikely that the citizens of any city or town might choose some different outcome than the direction they've always gone. Places possess DNA that whispers the way. Without some understanding of history, I will likely misunderstand the cues surrounding me. Those misunderstandings constitute much of the punishment being Exiled inflicts upon the otherwise innocent Exile. I couldn't hope to become a local while being Exiled, but I could better comprehend what would otherwise remain MissingHistory while there.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz