In position where the past isn’t written, it’s talked, and it still echoes today
Eons before background publications, hard disk drives, and hashtags, there was the fire.
It had a ring of faces around it, old and young, leaning in to hear.
An older removes his throat, and his voice fills up the yard.
He begins with that line everyone understands however listens for still: “Once throughout our ancestors …” The evening air drops silent. And so the story travels around hearts one more time.
It is the means background inhales country locations.
No libraries. No archives. Simply memory, spoken, sung, and kept in mind.
I grew up in a little town, and this occurred (lots) of times. A grandfather’s voice might extend the borders of time, bring you to fights dealt with, floods endured, heroes currently, but memories. Life, delight, loss, pride, and survival in every tale.
And before words lived on a page, they resided in individuals.
Our initial internet was the chain of understanding passed hand to hand and mouth to ear across hundreds, also thousands, of years.