january 14, 1911

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....a very pecial thanks to my friends of long long ago, with the foresight to preserve the special news and culture of their day.

note that telephone numbers were 3 digits.

wire service reports from around the world were readily available.

the dozens of downtown stores were often open until 10pm, even in winter.

husbands and wives often didn't get along.

one wonders what our successors, one hundred years hence, will think of our very own crude tools, methods, and savage barbarism.

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922. IV. Playthings of the Wind 1. Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind “The past is a bucket of ashes.” 1 THE WOMAN named To-morrow sits with a hairpin in her teeth and takes her time and does her hair the way she wants it and fastens at last the last braid and coil 5 and puts the hairpin where it belongs and turns and drawls: Well, what of it? My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone. What of it? Let the dead be dead. 2 The doors were cedar 10 and the panels strips of gold and the girls were golden girls and the panels read and the girls chanted: We are the greatest city, the greatest nation: 15 nothing like us ever was. The doors are twisted on broken hinges. Sheets of rain swish through on the wind where the golden girls ran and the panels read: We are the greatest city, 20 the greatest nation, nothing like us ever was. 3 It has happened before. Strong men put up a city and got a nation together, 25 And paid singers to sing and women to warble: We are the greatest city, the greatest nation, nothing like us ever was. And while the singers sang 30 and the strong men listened and paid the singers well and felt good about it all, there were rats and lizards who listened … and the only listeners left now 35 … are … the rats … and the lizards. And there are black crows crying, “Caw, caw,” bringing mud and sticks building a nest 40 over the words carved on the doors where the panels were cedar and the strips on the panels were gold and the golden girls came singing: We are the greatest city, 45 the greatest nation: nothing like us ever was. The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,” And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways. And the only listeners now are … the rats … and the lizards. 50 4 The feet of the rats scribble on the door sills; the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints chatter the pedigrees of the rats and babble of the blood 55 and gabble of the breed of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers of the rats. And the wind shifts and the dust on a door sill shifts 60 and even the writing of the rat footprints tells us nothing, nothing at all about the greatest city, the greatest nation where the strong men listened and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.

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