Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

One of the things I get to do with exchange students is visit my own state. I don't know how many Seattleites I've talked to that said they only go up the Space Needle when they have out of town guests. (Well, at $15 a pop, I can see why!) So...a trip to the Whitman Mission is in order.

It is interesting why people are famous. The Whitmans started a mission to the Cayuse Indians and lived near them for 11 years or so. It became a way station for settlers on the Oregon Trail; in 1847 some 5000 people visited them at least overnight. But they are most famous for: getting killed. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians was famous for: surrendering.

I'm sure that if, had the Indians won the land for themselves and were able to completely exclude the whites, these people would have been only a footnote in their history books. (And we would never have called them Indians, a 50+ year habit that is hard to break. And creates confusion when you tell a Pakistani exchange student that we are visiting an Indian museum in Toppenish.)

I've rarely had anyone disagree with me when I said that history is the most boring subject I've ever taken. (Of course now that I am an adult, I read history and enjoy it. The people that wrote those books were trying to make money, so they make what they write interesting. Those who write textbooks have a captive audience and don't need to make it interesting.) Which means that my impression of world history is this:

Europe existed to discover America.

The colonies rebelled and became the United States.

We had a civil war, then (generously) helped out Europe in World War 1 and 2. We ended the second one by dropping a bomb on Japan, although how the war ended in Europe is pretty murky.

So, after dragging Stephan around the countryside, I asked him what we thought of the Mission. He said it was pretty interesting and he learned all sorts of new things. And then I found out he learned nothing about US history at all when in the Netherlands.

At this point, I said: "So your impression of US History is that a long time ago some people left and never came back?" Before he could answer, Jack said "Somebody left?"

I should probably explain the last picture. At the old and decrepit age of 55, teenagers are faster than me. The light turned yellow. They ran. I didn't.