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Talking Shop...
with
the Millers
When my kids were little and watching Sesame Street,
Kermit the Frog sang a song called “It’s not that easy being
green.” (Maybe he still does; it’s a long time since Sesame
Street has been on our TV at home.)
Green is the buzz word these days. Green is good.
Everything that can be green, should be green. Although as Kermit
said, it’s not always easy. Taking care of our environment is not
simple.
I grew up “green.” My father was in the very first group hired by
the US Department of Agriculture when the Soil Conservation
Service was founded in the 1930s, and the slogan of that
department was drilled into me: “To treat each acre according to
its needs and use it according to its capabilities.” (It’s a great
slogan, and can apply to almost everything - including people.)
Those of us in the antique business are in a leadership position
for this popular, politically correct, and immensely important
movement. We’ve known it all along. Everything that can be used
again, should be used again. That’s what the antiques business
does.
Don’t discard those old clothes. That’s vintage fashion. Don’t put
those old toys in the trash. Old toys are a hot collectible. That
old rocking chair should not be used for kindling. It came out
West on a covered wagon. And so the list goes on. Everything that
we buy and sell has been used before. We are the original
recyclers. We are a green business!
Now, admittedly, there are a few aspects of our business that
aren’t so environmentally correct. We use up a lot of gasoline
driving from estate sale to garage sale to rummage sale. But hey,
there’s a lot of stuff out there that we need to rescue from a
trip to the nearest landfill. If you’re a dealer, there’s a lot of
gas used taking the stuff to a venue where you hope someone else
will recognize it’s worth and buy it from you. If you’re a buyer,
you’re also using gas to get to one of those venues where you hope
some dealer will have rescued just the item you want, because you
were too busy to go to the estate sales yourself.
We also need to recognize that some things have reached the end of
their lives, and it is time to be discarded. Some things are
broken or damaged beyond repair. In other words, your junk may be
just that - junk. Then we also need to be responsible citizens
and see that as much as possible gets put in whatever other
recycling efforts are available.
Donna Miller
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400th Anniversary Of Jamestown(e)
Celebrated
in 2007
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Inside the re-created James Fort, pieces of armor were
available for visitors to don. The two models in this
picture are wearing iron helmets and breastplates. It is
hard to imagine that these could be of much help, unless
the people were of very small size.
Kurz photo |
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The 400th anniversary of Jamestown, the first permanent settlement
in America, was celebrated in 2007. On May 14, 1607, 104 passengers,
all men and boys, arrived in this Virginia colony in three ships,
the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery. Today,
visitors can tour two places that recognize this event.
The first is Jamestown Settlement, a recreated village with several
sites which recreate life as it was there 400 years ago. We’d
visited here for the first time about ten years ago, but found it
well worth a repeat visit in 2007. Much has been added.
A
new Visitor Center was opened in 2007, with an introductory film, a
couple of different museum areas (and, of course, a gift shop.)
Galleries tell the story of the beginnings of European settlement in
Virginia including the relations with the Powhatan Indians who
already called this area home and the Africans from Angola who
were brought to this area as early as 1619.
Once through the museum area, the first thing a visitor encounters
outside is a recreated Powhatan village.
From there, a path leads to the Potomac River waterfront, where
full-size replicas of the three ships are docked. These ships are
seaworthy, and one was used to sail along the Atlantic coastline
last year, to highlight the 40th anniversary celebration.
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The Powhatan Indians made their canoes by a
controlled burning of the inside of the giant logs. A
costumed interpreter at Jamestown Settlement explained the
process.
Old Stuff photo |
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From there, one can wander back and inside James Fort, a re-creation
of the one built by the colonists in 1607. It’s triangular shaped,
and within this wooden stockade are the wattle-and-daub buildings
with the thatched roofs such as would have been used at the time.
There are dwellings, a church, a storehouse and an armory.
At
all of the outdoor locations, there are costumed interpreters to
explain, answer questions, and, in general, help the visitor to
understand life at the time.
That’s the first part of the Jamestown experience. More or less next
door, just a short drive down the road, is Historic Jamestowne. This
is the site where the first colony really was. It is basically an
archaeological dig at this time, and one can walk through the area
and see what is being discovered still today as the dig continues.
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Still standing at Historic Jamestowne is
the brick tower of a church built in 1639.
Old Stuff photo |
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Altogether, more than one million artifacts have been excavated from
the site, and about a thousand of these are on display in the
Historic Jamestowne Archaerium. It tells the story of how
archaeologists found the fort and what the excavations have
revealed. (It includes two almost-complete skeletons from bones
which have been recovered.) This building, located at the far end of
the site, is in addition to the Visitor Center operated by the
National Park Service at the entrance to the area.
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An example of the archaeological dig
being conducted at Historic Jamestowne. Sandbags along the
edge help prevent crumbling and erosion. A simple fence
keeps visitors from getting too close to the site.
Kurz photo |
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If
you visit this area, you’ll also want to spend some time at nearby
Yorktown, where the Revolutionary War was concluded, and Colonial
Williamsburg. The area, collectively, is known as the Historic
Triangle.
Donna Miller
P.S. I have not been careless with my spelling of Jamestown. Jamestown Settlement does not use the letter e at the end.
Historic Jamestowne does.
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