Posted by Rich/Mohican Press on May 06, 2001 at 06:05:31:
ABOVE: Your answer to "Which portion of this Web Site do you most enjoy?" (These answers to our polls where compiled over several years, by the way)
I'm reading this book right now ... it's about the portion of the Gettysburg battle that centered around Culp's & Cemetery Hills. It contains a wealth of information, and I'm always amazed at the amount of research that it takes to pen one of these books.
Then, as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, I was listening to the CD soundtrack of "Braveheart." As I did, I was thinking of all the sketchy little details known about William Wallace's life. Too bad it wasn't all recorded and documented the way the Civil War era and onward into the 21st Century has been. What a story it might have been then!
A really scary thought then popped into my sick little head ... Imagine if some disaster, natural or otherwise, destroyed civilization as we now know it. Practically everything on Earth gone, and just a relative handful of human survivors left the chore of rebuilding. Most all knowledge lost forever.
There'd be no sense of the historic. Fort William Henry, and her story, would no longer be known. William Wallace? Who's he? Great Roman Civilazion? Nothing. Proud Indian warriors of the plains? Never existed. All of history's mistakes would be fair game to occur all over again.
I don't know why I thought about that, but I sure hope we never see the day! And to all those who work, thanklessly, to record & preserve that which has come before us, I say "Bravo!"
Back to the here & now ... last minute Gathering concerns & little projects, the never-ending task of completing our "On The Trail Companion Guide," life's usual snags & responsibilities, all have combined to make our progress on this web site virtually halt. There are so many things I want to do, including adding to our historical hot-spot map, fleshing out portions of "Against All Odds" ... etc., etc.
Alas, it ain't happening right now ... as I said last week, post-Gathering will see the expected release of the Companion Guide (July 2001 ??), and roughly coinciding with that, sometime over the summer, a "complete" redesign & overhaul of the web site and, to some extent, the direction(s) it will continue to go in. So, realistically, anything new, or most anything new, will probably have to wait till then.
The site, at that time, will navigate much differently, function somewhat differently, content & purpose will change a bit, but there'll always be that link to the past and the people who made it what it became ...
Even if the Doc no longer doctors; even if Jo's horse is now looking for HER, instead of the other way around; even if Mohicanland has lost its only practicing lawyer (Victoria); even if the Militia no longer musters, the Traders rarely trade; even if we have a TowneCrier who no longer cries out, and a Courier with nothing to courier ...
It'll all still be a part of the new look ...
And so it will go ...
GATHERERS! Don't forget to sign-up for Friday's Potluck event RIGHT AWAY! Deadline: May 10!!!!