Cheers to Beth, jeers to plastic bottles.
The one thing I will always remember about Beth Carvey and her lifetime of work at Rock Island’s Black Hawk State Historic Site is a time she talked to me about the American Indians towns in the area that is now the Quad-Cities.
She chuckled a bit and said her use of the word "towns" was her way of making a statement, a way of pointing out that, subconsciously, people in general assign less importance to "villages" than to "towns" and that the places where Indians lived were every bit as important and legitimate as the towns of European settlers.
And thanks for your 36 years of giving tours and talks to perhaps a half-million school children, making sure history is not forgotten.
And made more special by people like her working there.
PLASTIC BOTTLES BACK IN NATIONAL PARKS: During a vacation swing through the five national parks in southern Utah a couple of years ago, I became aware of something I considered very wonderful: Water in plastic bottles was NOT for sale in the gift shops.
As with the example of Beth Carvey above, there was a point being made here.
Having to go to a water fountain and fill up my container made me feel proud of my country.
But now plastic bottles are back.
Just recently the Trump Administration reversed the six-year policy that allowed parks to ban the sale of plastic water bottles.