Tough times for the past ...

... I was given the heads up today that the venerable Pioneers Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, may be a casualty of the shrinking city budget... You can read about the city's woes here. This is extremely distressing to me—not just on a philosophical level, but on a personal level as well: I became a "long distance" member of the museum this summer and was looking forward to some enlightening emails exchanges with some of its researchers regarding the as-yet-unnamed Book #4 of the Silver Rush series...

Of course, Colorado Springs isn't the only city with budgetary woes. Right here in my home state of California and in other states as well, there's agonized slashing and burning (of the financial variety) in nearly every direction. Libraries—another institution that "guards the past"—are also closing left and right, or finding their hours severely curtailed.

Very sad, all in all ... the past is such an easy target, with its ghosts, its books, letters, objects, and images. With all that's going on here and now, who cares about the past?

But, when we shutter the museums and the libraries—the windows to the past—we are, in a sense, blinding ourselves (it's that old "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" business).

Anyhow, here's hoping that some way is found to keep the museum going, and for libraries to find a way to keep the lights burning for everyone.