Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
History.
What history?
You choose.
It's your history to preserve it or to lose it.
That's my message.
Thomas S. Monson said that we should learn from the past,
live in the present
and prepare for the future.
Keep that in mind.
I love books.
I love books, so I brought my protective little box here today,
and I brought a couple of favorites here.
I put on my white gloves because, you know,
the oils on your hand get on the pages of old books,
and so you have to be a little bit careful.
I also like to wrap them up in acid-free paper
so they survive a little bit longer.
This is a nice one.
Too bad you guys up front aren't a little bit closer,
maybe you could read the date.
Or maybe you can -
Can you guys up front read the date on this?
Let's see, when was this book printed?
Right down here in the bottom.
1834. That's older than I am.
Yeah.
(Laughter)
But it's a lovely little book; I love this little book.
Here's another one I like also.
This one's a little bit newer - this is the third edition,
and it came out in 1898.
Books.
But what I like about the books is I love the ink on the paper.
I love the letters that form words.
And the words that form sentences,
and the sentences that form paragraphs.
The paragraphs make chapters,
and then these are strung together in a sequence:
You'll have an introduction;
you'll have a body of the text;
you'll have a conclusion.
The index usually is at the back.
So, books are lovely things
to have and to enjoy.
It's something you can touch; you can feel the books.
I just love these books.
Well,
back to history:
A little known archaeologist said,
"The history we study is not what actually happened
but what got recorded through words, pictures or structures.
Well -
History is recorded, yes, in some of the books,
but also it's recorded in the things
that we create and we use -
the tools that we use,
the buildings that we live in and learn in and enjoy -
these are part of our material culture.
It's part of what surrounds us.
It's what we anthropologists refer to as material culture or cultural resources.
Cultural resources.
Now, God gave us natural resources, but humans gave us cultural resources.
And these cultural resources are the things
that we surround ourselves with
and that we use and that we enjoy so much.
I love ink on paper so much.
Look at this: I even wrote my thoughts and notes here.
Yes, well -
Let's go back a minute to these books that I love.
It's not just random words;
they're strung together in a certain way,
just as our history is strung together in certain ways.
But sometimes ...
the present comes in conflict with the past.
I think of an example down on Rochester Road,
just south of Avon on the east side of the road.
There was a beautiful example of a 19th century farmstead.
And a farmstead is the whole complex that produces the food that we eat.
Beautiful example.
But a developer came along:
"Rochester Road, lot of people, lot of traffic,
hmm,
I could make another strip mall there.
Just what we need."
So he bought the property,
and he went in to the planning commission
and said, "I'd like to develop this area. Here's an idea."
He got permission from the planning department,
and the first day -
after the evening meeting said, "you've got it" -
he went in;
he tore down the hay barn;
he tore down the corn crib,
he tore down the chicken coop,
he tore down the machine shop,
he tore down the pigpens.
But he did leave this beautiful, big, two-story white mansion.
In the back, she's nodding her head, "Yes, I remember that beautiful building."
But he saved that big building
because he named the housing development behind it -
he gave it a name, Hedgington Estates.
Hmm. Nice name.
Nice name.
But what he did is he had taken
the history book of our local history,
and then when he went in, he said,
"Well, I don't need that chicken coop.
I don't need that.
Or I don't need that hay barn.
Yeah, look, throw that one away.
Oh yeah, I don't need that -"
He ended up actually taking the house itself,
and he left it unattended for about four years
and left the water pipes on,
but he turned off the heater,
and so what happened?
The pipes broke, and it was just terrible,
and people couldn't stand to live there.
He was ripping the pages out of the history book.
I really feel sorry for him.
I think he's going to burn in a very hot place.
(Laughter) (Applause)
Yeah.
Well, you know, some of these pieces will survive
in museums or collections or antique shops,
but they lose their context, their little words;
they're no longer sentences and paragraphs and thoughts that really come through.
I recognize that we cannot save everything,
but could we at least save a sample?
I love nature too.
And when I experience or see a forest fire,
I am truly saddened,
but then I think,
"Wait three hundred years, and it will grow back."
But when you destroy non-renewable cultural resources,
like the barns and the houses and the factories,
they are gone forever.
So, the message comes back, really -
History.
What history?
You choose; it's your history.
Preserve it or lose it.
Thank you.
(Applause)