Joe L. Wheeler's Blog, page 23

A TREMBLING WORLD

Part Five

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

For four weeks we have spelled out a litany of woes and bad news; now it's time to search for both silver-linings and solutions, for doom and gloom alone will merely lead to paralysis and despair.  So it's time for us to approach the issue from a different perspective.

For three-quarters of a century, we have been born into, lived, and died, within the parameters of the Great Society template.  In short: the promise of cradle-to-the-grave care promised and delivered by generation after generation of politicians.  Now we are discovering that those old assumptions that worked so well for so long are no longer valid.

Let's quickly look at what we lost during that 75-year period: First, the very backbone of a great civilization—a moral code by which that society lives and acts.  In our case, before the so-called "Great Society," Americans by and large believed in God and the biblical injunctions about good and evil, right and wrong. For close to a century, our almost universal sources of allusions were three: The Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and the McGuffy Readers (or counterparts).  We as a society firmly believed in two things: God and country.  When we swore by the Bible that something was unquestionably true, or declared on the witness stand that our testimony would be true, "So help me God," it meant something.  It was the bedrock of our entire civilization. Today, both religion and patriotism have been under unrelenting attack by a predominantly unchurched and amoral media that seeks to so undermine and discredit the values Christians live by that they will crumble and cease to matter.  Christians have, by and large, supinely accepted such characterizations as perhaps true, and impossible to refute.  In short, in this respect, we have all but lost the battle.  But now, as the Great Society cracks at its seams, we are all given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reaffirm these values.

Second, we have all but lost the home, family—the very bedrock of a great civilization; when it has crumbled, historians tell us that it will only be a matter of time before the civilization itself collapses as well.  When America was assaulted by the Great Depression of the 1930s, America's families were strong enough to together (intergenerationally, with all three generations circling their wagons) somehow muddle through to the light (paradoxically World War II, fifteen years after the Crash of 1929).  Today; with single-parent households being the norm for the first time in our history, with out-of-wedlock births skyrocketing from one-third towards half (close to 80% in Black families), there is no such familial safety net to fall back on.  If the government can no longer afford to take care of us, and if the family (What family?  What with the discrediting of marriage, ubiquitous live-ins, multiple sex-partners, divorce after divorce, with children tossed back and forth as human frisbees) —where are the children (the adult children too) going to find a life-line?

Recently, a dear friend of mine (an erstwhile millionaire) lost everything: his six-figure position, his wife's executive job, his home (appraised for a million and a quarter that several  years later dropped so far below its original "value" that it was foreclosed on for a little over $400,000 .  By that time, my friend had been forced into bankruptcy.  Poignantly, he told me, "Because my credit is in such shambles, I couldn't even buy a junker of a car.  I can only purchase things (including food) with what cash we have.  Belatedly, I have come to realize that in this life, we can count on only three things: God, family (one that still loves and respects us), and health.  With these three, we can make it."  So it is that now, in an economy that appears unable to find any kind of bedrock, perhaps again we Americans may rediscover the value of marriage, commitment, and family.

Third, 75 years ago, we once had a work ethic that was the envy of the world.  Because the Great Society taught us that we no longer had to give an honest day's effort for an honest day's pay (indeed that we were entitled to pay even when we were out of work, providing few incentives to return to work for all too many who abuse the system), there has been an increasing reluctance to work at all.  We refuse, by and large, to accept "menial" work.  We no longer teach industrial arts in our schools and colleges or honor those who keep the machinery of our society in working order.  Work that our text-messaging media-junkies could be doing is now being down by untold thousands—indeed millions—of migrant workers who are delighted to have a job at all.  In offices across the land, rather than contributing to the firm's bottom line by conscientious work, it is said that untold thousands dither through their days, playing word games with each other, watching Internet porn, text-messaging their friends—and then they wonder why their companies fold!  There appears to be a real disconnect with what it takes to produce enough product to warrant steady pay-checks.  No small thanks to these rampant abuses, pundits are telling us that offices as we know them will, sooner than we think, begin to disappear.  Contract-work (far easier to monitor) will replace nine-to-five jobs in glass and steel boxes.  And that may not be such a bad thing.

Next Wednesday we will continue to search for solutions.

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WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

A TREMBLING WORLD – Part 4

It is a very sobering picture, isn't it (the last three blogs)?  It is indeed.  Yet, even so, I promised last week that we'd now turn to the up-side, affirmation, hope, solutions.

It is time.

A DIFFERENT WORLD

You will remember that, several times in recent months I have referred to my earlier prediction that, historically speaking, the other side of the zeros (100-year-turn, 500-year-turn, 1000-year-turn) invariably turns out to be radically different from all that came before—and that this one, being all three (100, 500, and 1000) would inevitably prove to be the most seismic since the years 1500 and 1000.  We are only now beginning to realize that the ebbtide of the old order is taking place before our very eyes.  What we don't know yet is what kind of incoming tide will replace the receding one.  We can only guess.

What we can predict with a high degree of accuracy is that the pace of life and change will continue to increase in speed as the world continues to constrict into nanotechnology.  So when did all this begin to accelerate?  Only three-hundred years ago: when the zeros of 1800 replaced the zeros of the 1700′s.  Up until that crucial watershed (turning point), for millennia, the pace of life had remained relatively unchanged: the fastest land-speed being a galloping horse and the fastest sea-speed being a sailing-ship.  Because neither of these optimum speeds could be long sustained (obstacles on land and becalming on water), there was no need for clocks; sundials worked well enough, until the industrial revolution of the 1800′s when steam-power replaced sail-power.  Only when ever faster locomotives made it imperative that we divide the nation into time zones, did accurate time become relevant, for before the invention of mechanical engines, no one could possibly know for sure when either a land-vehicle or a sea-vessel would arrive at a given destination.

Every year since 1800, the pace of life has continued to accelerate.  Sometimes at such a rate that the juxtaposition of two opposites proved to be ridiculous (such as during World War I, fought with both cavalry horses and armored tanks; fought with both drifting balloons and power-driven airplanes).

Nostalgically, my thoughts drift back in time a half-century to a musical play my high school students put on during the mid 1960s.  Our theme song was "Far Away Places," and the play began and ended with a dreaming teenager in her home bedroom, and the lyrics had to do with "those far away places with strange-sounding names."  The music that followed came from all over the world.  Places that seemed strangely exotic to us back before jet travel replaced prop-engine travel. The world seemed so vast to us back then!

I remember when I first heard the phrase: "The world is a vast web, and you can't touch any part of it without it affecting the lives of everyone else."  That seemed so far-fetched back then, really too much of a stretch to take seriously.  So what if rainforests in far away Brazil or Papua New Guinea were being cut down at an ever-increasing rate?  It surely couldn't affect me!  Far-fetched then because I'd never been to either place, and with the pace of travel back then, it seemed unlikely I ever would.  But that's not true today when I can doze off in one continent and wake up next morning in another, thousands of miles away.  When astronauts can return to earth after having actually walked on the moon!

But the flip-side of speed is nanotechnology: being able to reduce all life and technology to such infinitesimal proportions that the naked eye cannot see it at all.  And thanks to this new  technology, sports victories can now be accurately calibrated down to a hundredth of a second—even a thousandth!

Not surprisingly, national boundaries are increasingly viewed as both indefensible and outdated, and dictatorships are toppling like rows of dominos thanks to the worldwide web of the Internet.  Not even the strongest walls in the world can keep the Pentagon's innermost secrets from being hacked.  Corporations can set up shop in the loosy-goosiest countries (regulation-wise) on the planet; and jobs can be out-sourced to wherever in the world the hourly pay is the cheapest.  No longer does someone in the most powerful country in the world have the edge over someone in the poorest country, given that access to a computer so levels the playing field that Thomas Friedman can justifiably announce that "The World is Flat."

* * * * *

So now comes this global slowdown that dramatically changes every aspect of life for every person on this planet—not just ours here in the U.S.  Everything was working so well—as late as only three years ago.  Then Bam!  Bam!  Bam! —one after another, the bludgeon blows continue, with no apparent end in sight.  No one appears to have the answers.  In the words of that timeless baseball skit: "Nobody's on first."  Nobody.  Not here in the U.S.  Not anywhere else in the world either.  All even the most powerful leaders in the world know is this: the old order, the old template that enabled all the markets in the world to peacefully coexist and churn out prosperity for the majority of the world's industrial powers, is broken, and there isn't a mechanic in the world who knows how to fix it.

That's just it: it is unfixable.  The answer nobody wants to hear is this: A new template, evolved from scratch, must be created from our new realities.  It is anything but a quick fix, and it is almost certain to take a long time to develop.  And we have to face the likelihood that when we do finally get it up and running again, so that the world's markets once again purr their satisfaction, even that template will be foredoomed to a short shelf life, because change in future years will be near continuous.

The good news is that these are exciting times in which to live.  We have been long overdue for a course-correction; unfortunately, we waited so long that this one is likely to be the mother of all lulus.

Next Wednesday, we'll discuss silver-linings.

A TREMBLING WORLD

Part Three

Wednesdays with Dr. Joe

About twelve years ago, a high-ranking Colorado state representative spoke to our local Kiwanis Club.  He was uncharacteristically somber, as he put on his prophetic hat.  In so many words, he predicted that within about ten years—even if relatively flush times continued—Colorado would begin running out of money: "We are coming to the end of an era, Friends.  Social Security, born in the depths of the Great Depression when life expectancy was around 45 to 50, was feasible and possible for our nation to continue; but FDR had no way of knowing that life-expectancy would move up and up and up until today it is nearing 80, with many Americans living on retirement for a longer period of time than their career years (many into their 90s, and even 100s), placing an insupportable burden on a retirement system based on 65."

He continued, "Mark my words, we are fast reaching the time when Social Security and guaranteed medical assistance will have to be curtailed.  You will no longer be able to assume the state will cover Mom's late life medical expenses; we will once again, as Americans did up until the Great Depression, face a world where families took care of their own, where all three generations lived in proximity to each other—they had to."

So it is likely that Obama's dream that all Americans will henceforth be guaranteed cradle-to-the-grave healthcare may very well be the swan song of Social Security as we once knew it; now we are discovering that the money just isn't there for such a utopian concept.  Exacerbating our fiscal plight no little is the double whammy of America's continued substance abuse  (drugs/tobacco, alcohol) and out-of-control eating, together, through diseases such as lung cancer and diabetes, killing close to a million of us a year..

Metaphorically, it's like America is waking up after a sixty-year binge (made possible by credit cards and houses used as glorified ATMs).  In Christmas in My Heart 13, my wife Connie tells of a Christmas during the early 1950s when en route from California's Monterey Peninsula to her home in Fortuna (near Eureka), a major storm blew in, the Eel River flooded and washed out Highway 101 in places; so Connie and others were stranded in Garberville.  The lady who was driving them home hadn't banked on a flood, having just enough money to cover the gas costs to get them home.  Not for motels and extra food.  So what did they do?  They agreed to do the motel's laundry, make up the bedrooms, etc., in return for having a room to sleep in.  For since the motel manager didn't take checks and credit cards didn't exist yet, you either had money or you didn't.

As our son Greg said recently, "Dad, for 50 years we've been spending money we didn't have.'  Up until three years ago, at least twice a month we'd get calls asking us if we didn't want to take out another loan on our house.  Those days will most likely never come back, at least in our lifetimes.

More and more of us today are either using only debit cards or charging only what we can pay off at the end of the month.  We do this because many of us live in perpetual fear that we will join those who owe more than their homes are worth, so that, if we lose our jobs, we too will be forced to declare bankruptcy and be evicted from our own homes.

Across the nation today, our grown children, unable to even get a job, are forced to remain at home with Mom and Dad.  Those who predict the economy has rounded the corner and heading up are proven wrong again and again. The world's leading economists are grave, warning that it might be years—even decades—before we regain what we had three years ago.

Just as was true with the Great Depression of the 1930s, this one is global too, so there is nowhere to escape to.  Also, just as was true when Teddy Roosevelt became President close to 110 years ago, never has the gap between the rich and the poor been as great.  Even while the banks and corporations are failing, unbelievably they continue to pay their CEOs millions a year.  Same for sports stars, landing contracts in the hundreds of millions while schools, libraries, parks, post offices, etc., are being forced to lay off employees or close.  Misplaced priorities are all around us.

However, if a crash does come—it won't be all bad.

More on that next Wednesday

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 A TREMBLING WORLD

 Part Two

 WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

In earlier blogs, I have referred to my own fascination with the turning of zeroes, how every fin de siecle results in a fruit basket-upset of all the values by which society lives.

Well, the last eleven years have proved that my assumption remains valid.  Almost nothing is the same as it was back in the 1990′s.

For one thing, never before has our planet been more interconnected, with national borders meaning less than today.  The world wide web has nailed the lid on that old order.  Thanks to this web, dictatorships are falling like so many dominoes in the Middle East.  But what takes their place is anyone's guess.

Perhaps the supreme question is this: Is democracy possible in the Muslim World?  Or does the theocratic nature of Islam preclude the establishment of a true democracy.  As I write these words, thoughtful Egyptians are extremely apprehensive about what may follow Mubarak.  No one knows if Tunisia is capable of establishing a free society.  The same is true of Libya.  Turkey has been tilting backwards from a secular free society towards theocratic governance.

What we do know is that all across the Middle East there is a yearning for the freedoms we westerners take for granted.

STAGGERING TOWARDS A NEW TEMPLATE

What is coming at us, no one knows.  All we know is that there are ominously deep cracks in the old one.  According to famed economist, Kenneth Rogoff, "Europe and the U.S. are not experiencing a typical recession or even a double-dip Great Recession. That problem can ultimately be corrected with the right mix of conventional policy tools like quantitative easing and massive bailouts.  Rather, the West is going through something much more profound: a second Great Contraction of growth, the first being the period after the Great Depression.  It is a slow-or no-growth waltz that plays out not over months but over many years. [Quoted by Rana Foroohar, in "The Decline and Fall of Europe (and maybe the West)," Time, August 22, 2011].

In the U.S., as elsewhere in the world, what is desperately needed is not politicians but statesmen: men and women who put the good of their country over mere re-election.  In times like these, weakness at the top will inevitably prove fatal.  Not a temporizing Chamberlain but a Washington, a Lincoln, a TR or FDR—a Winston Churchill.  This is why so many current "leaders" are going to be "weighed in the balances and found wanting." (See William Broyles "Oval Office Appeaser" (Newsweek, Aug. 22, 29, 2011).

Foroohar is anything but optimistic in her analysis: "The euro is the only viable alternative to the dollar as a global reserve currency.  The British pound is history, and emerging-market currencies are still too small, volatile and controlled.  And while plenty of investors are fleeing into gold, the world gold market isn't big enough to accommodate serious dollar diversification without massive inflation in gold itself. . . .  It is unclear at this stage whether the euro will even survive the debt crisis that has engulfed Europe, one that is in many ways worse than the one we're experiencing in the U.S."

So, will Germany be the white horse that rides to Europe's rescue" Foroohar is doubtful: "Even in good times, it is never easy to balance the fiscal needs of a high-cost exporter like Germany with those of cheap and cheerful service economies like Greece, Spain, and Portugal.  In bad times, it's impossible."

What about the U.S., are we likely to be the white horse again like we were after World Wars I and II?  Foroohar's assessment of that likelihood is bleak: "both Europe and the U.S. will continue to struggle with the crisis of the old order.  Populations will have to come to terms with no longer being able to afford the public services they want.  Investors will have to cope with a world in which AAA assets aren't what they used to be.  Businesses will deal with stagnating demand, and workers will face flat wages and high unemployment. . . .  It's the end of an era in which the West and western ideas of how to create prosperity succeeded.  The crisis in Europe and the challenges yet to come on either side of the Atlantic take us into a whole new era."

So, with Japan still reeling in the East, does that leave China as the answer?  Not likely.  China's current growth rate of 8% will inevitably stall, and ominously its people are pouring billions into a housing bubble that may be even worse than those experienced by Japan and the U.S. (See Niall Ferguson's "Gloating China, Hidden Problems," Newsweek, August 22, 29, 2011).

So what are our options?

Next Wednesday, we'll discuss some of them.

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A TREMBLING WORLD

Part One

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

In early August, our grandson Taylor and our son Greg, joined Connie and me on a whirlwind visit to Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, and Croatia. The day-trips were long (9 – 11 hours the norm for most of them) and the pace far faster than we'd have preferred [more on that in a later blog series].

I had the advantage over the other three in that I knew Spanish. Because of that, I understood some French and two-thirds of the Italian dialogue. Croatian, of course, was a different story.

Connie and I had been to Europe three times before. This time, however, the mood there was radically different from what it had been earlier. Gone was the assumption that united Europe (the Common Market) was a global powerhouse on a par with the United States and (during the 1970s, U.S.S.R.). Not so this time. As one Italian told me, "I am frightened, for the whole world is trembling beneath my feet."

I found that perception reinforced by others I spoke with. Gone is their erstwhile euphoria and smug complacency; gone too the unspoken assumptions that the entire continent would bask in lolling on their beaches during the entire month of August and that the cradle-to-the-grave care they'd been promised by the state was a given. In their daily news, the dominoes continue to fall: first Greece, then storm clouds gathered over the likes of the U.K., Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy—and now, possibly France. No one knows what nation's economy will come under fire next.

As for the U.S. and our part in the global fiscal mess, I found that, rather than anger they felt disillusioned, accompanied by a profound loss of respect. They clearly expected much more of us than for our administration and Congress to put their possible re-election ahead of the needs of the American people and the world. For it was our inexcusable unwillingness to come together for a solution to our national debt ceiling that has exacerbated and even precipitated the world-wide plunge of stock markets.

In this vein, deeply sobering is Time Magazine's August 22 cover story: "The Decline and Fall of Europe (And Maybe the West)." It begins with these riveting words: "Its economic union is unraveling, London is ablaze, and the continent's once dependable trading partner the U.S. is too feeble to save the day or the euro. Say goodbye to the old order."

Rana Forgohar (the writer of the cover story) postulates that "This is no blip but a crisis of the old order. . . . It is a crisis that is shaking not only markets, jobs and national growth prospects but an entire way of thinking about how the world works–in this case, the assumption that life gets better and opportunities richer for each successive generation in the West."

Dominic Sandbrook in his "Capitalism in Crisis (London Daily Mail, Aug. 6, 2011) begins his sobering essay with his conclusion: "Eighty years ago, a banking collapse devastated Europe, triggering war. Today, faith in free markets is faltering again. . . . But in the summer of 2011, with the euro zone in chaos, the British economy stagnant and the U.S. crippled by debt, with social mobility at a standstill and millions of ordinary families squeezed until they can barely breathe, it feels disturbingly familiar."

Sandbrook goes on to point out that not since the global meltdown of the 1930′s has the gap between rich and poor been as great as today; "with bankers still pocketing gigantic bonuses and Europe swept with a wave of austerity, even the Right are beginning to wonder whether the system is intolerably loaded in favour of rich metropolitan elites."

And what happened next eighty years ago? In Sandbrook's words: "Many turned to the Right, swelling the rank of the Nazis and their allies. In Britain, a generation of intellectuals turned their backs on capitalism, placing their faith in the utopian idealism of Soviet Communism and closing their eyes to the horrors of Stalin's barbaric regime."

In that same issue of the Daily Mail, City Editor Alex Brummer penned these scathing lines: "There has been a terrible failure of politics in America and euroland, where leaders have shied away from bold decisions and the gritty determination needed to follow them through. Those who will suffer the most from this inaction are millions of households in Britain and the rest of the western world, who face dramatic falls in their living standards."

Truly, we are faced with a global crisis of epic proportions, a subject I have referred to from time to time in earlier blogs: That no global template lasts. Sooner or later it wears out, and something entirely different inevitably follows—usually after years of world-wide trauma and upheaval.

We will continue to explore this subject in next Wednesday's blog.

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29TH ZANE GREY CONVENTION

Part 5

CONVENTION CONCLUDES

This blog for August 17

(Insert #419 – Group of Zanies at Jamestown)

Wednesday evening, we held a discussion on the last Zane Grey novel to be published, George Washington, Frontiersman. This book, Grey left unfinished. University of Kentucky historian, Carlton Jackson, edited the final manuscript many years later. Grey fans had long been looking forward to seeing it since it represented the final fourth of Grey's Ohio Valley quartet. Furthermore, it featured George Washington, a friend of the Zane family (Zane Grey's maternal ancestors). Such a spirited book discussion developed that it was decided to schedule another next year, on two Grey books: Wyoming and Maverick Queen, both set in the Wyoming Territory region.

(Insert #454 – Reconstructed Jamestown church – being excavated inside)

Thursday morning, what members label "the fastest [and shortest] four days of the year," began with what has become one of the high points of the convention. Prof. Charles ["Chuck"] Pfeiffer attended the very first Zane Grey convention in Keene, Texas; indeed, he parked his faithful VW van on our lawn, back in 1983. Since that time, Pfeiffer has become the world's foremost authority on the settings of Zane Grey books, traveling hundreds of thousands of miles, criss-crossing the nation, (often with college students taking classes for credit, traveling with him). Pfeiffer has reduced Grey's settings to a science. Prior to Pfeiffer's studies, we were often confused about some of Grey's settings for they don't always fit exactly on maps today. Given that Grey always maintained that the settings of his novels were more important than the characters themselves (since people are so much a product of their environment), Pfeiffer has been performing a huge service for today's readers of Grey. Nor did he disappoint us this year, with his slide show (digitized), "The Locations of the Novel George Washington, Frontiersman. Pfeiffer is also author of the stupendous tour de force, Zane Grey, a Study in Values: Above and Beyond the West (Aurora, Colorado: Zane Grey's west Society, 2005).

Following a break, we proceeded to the annual election of officers (some have two-year terms, others one). Years ago we discovered (during a period when we almost lost the Society) that so close is the bond between members that they adamantly refuse to run against each other. Consequently, today there is little suspense in our elections. The election process is handled by the Executive Director of the Society.

Afterwards, a visual presentation was made to dream up additional interest in the June (third week), 2012 convention to be held in Spearfish, South Dakota (our first convention in the Black Hills). Our members will also be visiting Mount Rushmore, Chief Crazy Horse site, and the Badlands National Park.

Following that, a presentation was made by Dr. James D'Arc, inviting us all to bring the 2013 convention to Provo, Utah. There we will be feted with a Zane Grey film series at Brigham Young University, as well as being part of a celebration centering on all the Zane Grey collections BYU has been acquiring over the years [they also purchased my collection several years ago]. BYU is well on its way to becoming the greatest repository of Zane Grey manuscripts, films, memorabilia, books, etc., in the world. It is being set up as a research center for western scholars around the world. For instance, the 10,000 note cards I hand-wrote for my doctoral dissertation on Grey at Vanderbilt University have already been digitized so people anywhere may access it, not just students and scholars.

We often have mini-convention weekends following a given convention. 2013′s will feature one at Bryce Canyon National Park. Such weekends offer attendees the opportunity to experience places they've always wanted to see, in the company of cherished friends.

After a business meeting, we adjourned. Most members took this opportunity to revisit Williamsburg, Jamestown, or Yorktown. Except for the officers: we had to remain behind for the annual board meeting. Connie got to visit the Jamestown dig.

At 7:00 p.m., the most poignant meeting of all, the annual banquet. Poignant because so many Zanies are getting along in years that everyone realizes that for some, it may be their last convention. Dress-wise, attendees can be as casual or as formal as they like. Highlights of the banquet are: the President presents special awards, usually the coveted Purple Sage Award, for outstanding contributions to Zane Grey awareness; I present inscribed books to those members who made the previous convention such a success. To this year's participants I presented them with a book depicting American ghost towns they may wish to visit. Another thing we always do is have a roll call of our alumni. This being our 29th convention, there were a lot of convention destinations represented. As each past convention is announced (with place and date), all those who first joined us on that occasion stand, and we all applaud. Then, that saddest moment of all: For the last few years, we've called upon David Leeson (who comes all the way from England to the convention each year) to lead out in the closing act of the convention. We all link hands and sing "Auld Lang Syne" – "May old acquaintance be ne'er forgot . . ." During that beloved old Scottish song, tears come to many of us.

And another convention is history.

* * * * *

If you'd be interested in learning more about the Society, drop me a line (to P.O.. Box 1246, Conifer, CO 80433), with your mailing address, and I'll send you a complimentary copy of our beautiful Society magazine, The Zane Grey Review. We'd love to have you become a member of our extended family.

HOOKS:

George Washington, Frontiersman

Jackson, Carlton

Washington, George

Wyoming

Maverick Queen

Pfeiffer, Chuck

Zane Grey's West Society

Spearfish, S.D.

Provo, UT

Brigham Young University

D'Arc, James

Zane Grey

Bryce Canyon National Park

Purple Sage Award

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Reconstructed Indian village

29TH ZANE GREY CONVENTION

Scenes from the Jamestown State Park:

Since we were all exploring Williamsburg on our own, buses took our tour group first to Colonial Jamestown. Unfortunately, Jamestown is divided into two enclaves (one has to decide which one you wish to see): the Virginia site or the federal site. Our bus took the main group to the Virginia site, where there is an exceedingly impressive museum, as well as the reconstructed 1607 fort, Indian village, and ships the settlers traveled in from England.

Seamen re-enactors

At the ship docks, re-enactors in period costume filled us in on the significance of what we were seeing. It boggled the mind to imagine so many passengers jammed into such cramped quarters for months at a time, with no sanitary facilities, mighty few beds, inadequate food with no kitchen or dining facilities. No bathing facilities, no air-conditioning or heating. The stench must have been awful!

Ships seen from entrance to the fort

Life in the Jamestown fort was re-enacted in the same way. Many of our group went back to Federal Jamestown later. Here is where the real action is taking place today. For centuries, it was believed that Old Jamestown was buried somewhere under the James River, thus Americans could only speculate on what life was like there in 1607 and during the terrible years that followed, when so many died in Indian attacks and from disease or malnutrition. But then came the groundswell of renewed interest in the history of Jamestown during the period leading up to the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.

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Scene inside the fort

According to William M. Kelso (the head archeologist for the Jamestown Rediscovery Project), in his recent book, Jamestown: The Buried Truth (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2006), there was just enough doubt as to whether all vestiges of the original fort and site were gone forever to see for themselves if it was true. Kelso had been working on the site clear back in 1955, just before the 350th anniversary. A lot had been unearthed by archeologists since, but not the original fort. Finally, they struck pay-dirt, by digging out one 10-foot-square section at a time. Slowly, painstakingly, they are uncovering the history of the very beginnings of our nation. They found the fort! Connie visited the dig Thursday afternoon with Earps and Riffels and were there soon after an archeologist unearthed a piece of pottery! Over 700,000 artifacts have been unearthed so far!

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Rifleman inside the fort

As to its significance, Kelso writes, "The excavations at Jamestown have turned up more evidence than anyone had expected – most important, the site of James Fort, so long thought unrecoverable. Nor are these physical remains the only treasure to be discovered. The soil has yielded a new understanding of the early years of Jamestown; a new picture of its settlers, of their abilities, their lives, and their accomplishments; and a new story of the interdependence between the English settlers and the Virginia Indians" (Kelso, 7).

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Studying life below deck

It is no hyperbole to say that the most exciting place to visit in America today is the ongoing Jamestown dig. Next time you visit that part of the nation, by all means take the time to see what's happening for yourself.

Reconstructed ships - Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery in Jamestown Harbor

It was fascinating to see that even in the Virginia re-creation of the James Fort, results from the Jamestown archeological dig is causing them to restructure the placement of buildings within the fort, for archeologists have even discovered the exact placement of postholes!

Scroll down for scenes from the Federal Jamestown Park Dig Site:

Lucy Earp and Pocahontas

Piece of pottery found while our group was there

Henry Nardi and Terri Bolinger

Captain John Smith, famous Jamestown governor and military leader.

Next Wednesday, we shall conclude our coverage of the convention.

HOOKS:

Jamestown 400th anniversary

Artifacts

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