Keeping culture, tradition alive

Time Traveler: Most of my longtime readers know the story of the Time Traveler, but from time to time people approach me asking what this Time Traveler stuff is all about. Over the years, I have added new readers of this column who may not know its history, so I figured it's time to inform those folks about the genesis of the legend of The Time Traveler. The rest of you can pass and read Frady's Bicycle Boy column or Susan Rushton, and there's always the Obits. I entered this vale of tears somewhere around the mid 1940's, before the state ruined a very nice river and replaced it with a mud hole called Folsom Lake. The house where I spent most of my formative years was the last remaining building in an abandoned 1850's mining camp called Cooper's Ravine. Not much had changed about that house since it was built. It still didn't have electricity. The outhouse was just across the creek and the only real change was that someone slapped a tin roof on it some time or other, which is probably why it survived. The last I checked, it was still out there. The nearest neighbor was five or six miles away. There was no neighborhood kids riding bikes to the park or playing baseball in a field. I didn't even see very many kids my own age until I had to go to school at six. Even when I did encounter one, I didn't like them all that much. I just considered them snotty-nosed, ill-behaved little cretens. My closest confidants were all old men. Not that many people would take the trek out there. These old boys would sit on the front porch and shoot the breeze with my dad and talk about what old guys talk about - the past. I would sit with them, spit watermelon seeds at the cat and listen. By the time I was 7 or 8 I had most of their memories stuck in my brain pan. Since then I have my own life's memories and theirs are just jumbled up together. Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm remembering for them or for me. My dad was the youngest of the group and he was born in 1913. Most of these old boys had been born around 1880 or thereabouts. Custer had only been in his grave for a few years and the Wright Brothers were opening a bicycle repair shop. Even though these old boys were born 60 or so years before me, our lifestyles were much the same. I could trim the wick on a coal oil lamp so that it didn't smoke up the chimney. I knew to keep a coffee can full of lime outside the outhouse door and to never use the shiny pages on a monkey wards catalogue for T.P. I knew what a completely silent house sounded like before TV and radio ruined the peace with noise. People read more. In short, I lived a 19th century lifestyle and I consider myself to be the connection to then and now. Maybe those old timers sent me here as their spokesman? You always hear how people died at 45 in those days. Not so. For one thing, there was high infant mortality in those days, so if you compare a child dying at one years old to someone who has managed to avoid dying of diabetes or T.B. at 80, statistically you come up with 45. Like Mark Twain said, "There's lies, damn lies, and statistics." It's not that we are living any longer, we are just better at defeating disease. Damn, I got off track again. Anyway, what would those folks say if they could see what's happening in this century? Whenever I go back, I'm having a hard time convincing them. Last time I was back explaining to them that in the 21st century, after years of women fighting for their civil rights there are these 180-pound six foot guys competing against 5'2' 125-pound women and beating them up. "The hell you say!" said one. "That can't be so, I think the cheese has slid off your cracker, son." I showed him a 21st century news article to prove it. After reading it a few times trying to get his mind around it he said, "I'll tell you one thing for sure, if that thug tried anything like that here, he would get his butt kicked behind Amos Sperindi's cow barn and ridden out of town on a rail." I haven't got the courage to tell them the rest of it yet. Most of my relatives came through Ellis Island between 1900 and 1920. The first thing they did was grasp enough of the English language to get a job and they would up owning a lot of the rock quarries in Rocklin. The Finns did ok for themselves. So did the Italians. Ever heard of Little Italy? Same with the Irish. They all wanted to be Americans and to assimilate while still keeping their culture and traditions alive. The difference today is that people are coming in from all over the world demanding that we respect their cultures and traditions at the expense of our own. They want to turn America into wherever they came from. We are a society that accepts anything, and when you accept anything, you believe in nothing. No rules. That's when legislators take over and pass laws willy nilly. Have you looked at this year's ballot? We obey laws because we have to, we obey rules because we want to. It's ok to respect the culture and traditions of others, but we have a right to our own culture and traditions as well. To comment, call 530-320-6441.