Once on a field trip to the South with geology students, I stood with them and a colleague on the precipitous upper overlook at Linville Falls, North Carolina. Magnificent area even for non-geologists, it attracts numerous visitors, including school groups. The area is not only beautiful, but also very peaceful. Get a portable chair, go there, and become one with Nature.
As we stood on the overlook, a narrow area bounded by cliffsides, a group of children sprinted ahead of trailing chaperones, and crowded onto the overlook. Some even crawled onto the low stone retaining wall, putting themselves in danger of plunging to their deaths. My colleague, a geologist who had actually fallen from a cliff face and spent time in a hospital, was desperate to provide safety, and shouted, “Who’s in charge here?”
That was not met with a cooperative spirit aimed at the safety of the elementary school children. In fact, one of the outraged chaperones asked angrily, “Where are you from?”
When my colleague innocently answered “Pennsylvania,” the chaperone said with disgust, “Yankees.” I don’t remember the year of the incident, but I’m ballparking it at about 25 years ago.
Switch gears for a moment: One of my earliest research projects was a joint venture with agronomists from Argonne National Laboratory. Nice guys. Good, effective soil scientists. It made sense for me to learn as much as I could about soils for the project at hand, an erosion-control experiment on a gas pipeline right-of-way on a steep slope. Now, at the time, I discovered that Edmund Ruffin was considered a “Father” of American soil science because of his efforts to improve soil conservation and fertility. In antebellum nineteenth century Ed owned a plantation (called Marlbourne) in Virginia. I didn’t know it at the time of my research, but Edmund Ruffin was a member of the Fire-Eaters, secessionists who wanted to preserve slavery. Ed is also credited with firing, if not the first shot, one of the first shots against Fort Sumter to start the Civil War. It so happened that his “first shot” was a bookend to his last. In despair, he shot himself after the South surrendered. Anyway, Edmund Ruffin left a note in which he said he had “unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race.”*
Back to my story about children from a North Carolinian elementary school on a field trip: Obviously, some group of adults still carried a grudge against “Yankees.” And that grudge came after more than a century of intermixing cultures, Northerners buying homes and condos in the South and opening businesses there, and Southerners going to northern colleges and similarly buying residences and opening businesses, the mixing going all around, North, South, East, and West.
So, a brief calculation: If I remember correctly on the approximate year, the incident at Linville
Falls would have occurred about 1993. The Civil War and Edmund Ruffin ended in 1865, or 128 years before a college class took a field trip to North Carolina. Still, there were those who carried Ed’s hatred forward. One hundred twenty-eight years!
Not a big deal in comparison with the longer-lived hatreds of the Hutus and Tutsis, the people of the Middle East, and, well, just about every two cultures that once had a beef. So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that my well-intentioned colleague who just wanted to make sure no children fell to their deaths was met with disdain by people who ignored the safety of those children, preferring to bring up a wound they had never personally suffered.
And that brings me to this. Those who carry such grudges from distant generations fail to protect children of their own time as they unknowingly run toward a precipice. In some long-fought conflicts, the parents literally push their children toward the precipice of personal ruin. I have no way of knowing whether or not Edmund Ruffin’s ten children or their progeny moved to North Carolina, where those field-trip kids attended classes. I would certainly be curious to see whether or not his descendants carried any of Edmund’s grudges through ensuing generations of “Southerners.” Poor Edmund. If one of those descendants now lives in the North and associates with “Yankees,” the late Fire-Eater would be turning over the soil above his grave. When I think about Edmund's desire to improve soil, turning it over would aerate the dirt over his permanent "farm" and be a fitting tribute to the “Father of Soil Science.”
Children will fall from the heights of beauty and peace if we don’t eliminate generational grudges.
*Walther, Eric. The Fire-Eaters. LSU Press, 1992.
As we stood on the overlook, a narrow area bounded by cliffsides, a group of children sprinted ahead of trailing chaperones, and crowded onto the overlook. Some even crawled onto the low stone retaining wall, putting themselves in danger of plunging to their deaths. My colleague, a geologist who had actually fallen from a cliff face and spent time in a hospital, was desperate to provide safety, and shouted, “Who’s in charge here?”
That was not met with a cooperative spirit aimed at the safety of the elementary school children. In fact, one of the outraged chaperones asked angrily, “Where are you from?”
When my colleague innocently answered “Pennsylvania,” the chaperone said with disgust, “Yankees.” I don’t remember the year of the incident, but I’m ballparking it at about 25 years ago.
Switch gears for a moment: One of my earliest research projects was a joint venture with agronomists from Argonne National Laboratory. Nice guys. Good, effective soil scientists. It made sense for me to learn as much as I could about soils for the project at hand, an erosion-control experiment on a gas pipeline right-of-way on a steep slope. Now, at the time, I discovered that Edmund Ruffin was considered a “Father” of American soil science because of his efforts to improve soil conservation and fertility. In antebellum nineteenth century Ed owned a plantation (called Marlbourne) in Virginia. I didn’t know it at the time of my research, but Edmund Ruffin was a member of the Fire-Eaters, secessionists who wanted to preserve slavery. Ed is also credited with firing, if not the first shot, one of the first shots against Fort Sumter to start the Civil War. It so happened that his “first shot” was a bookend to his last. In despair, he shot himself after the South surrendered. Anyway, Edmund Ruffin left a note in which he said he had “unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race.”*
Back to my story about children from a North Carolinian elementary school on a field trip: Obviously, some group of adults still carried a grudge against “Yankees.” And that grudge came after more than a century of intermixing cultures, Northerners buying homes and condos in the South and opening businesses there, and Southerners going to northern colleges and similarly buying residences and opening businesses, the mixing going all around, North, South, East, and West.
So, a brief calculation: If I remember correctly on the approximate year, the incident at Linville
Falls would have occurred about 1993. The Civil War and Edmund Ruffin ended in 1865, or 128 years before a college class took a field trip to North Carolina. Still, there were those who carried Ed’s hatred forward. One hundred twenty-eight years!
Not a big deal in comparison with the longer-lived hatreds of the Hutus and Tutsis, the people of the Middle East, and, well, just about every two cultures that once had a beef. So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that my well-intentioned colleague who just wanted to make sure no children fell to their deaths was met with disdain by people who ignored the safety of those children, preferring to bring up a wound they had never personally suffered.
And that brings me to this. Those who carry such grudges from distant generations fail to protect children of their own time as they unknowingly run toward a precipice. In some long-fought conflicts, the parents literally push their children toward the precipice of personal ruin. I have no way of knowing whether or not Edmund Ruffin’s ten children or their progeny moved to North Carolina, where those field-trip kids attended classes. I would certainly be curious to see whether or not his descendants carried any of Edmund’s grudges through ensuing generations of “Southerners.” Poor Edmund. If one of those descendants now lives in the North and associates with “Yankees,” the late Fire-Eater would be turning over the soil above his grave. When I think about Edmund's desire to improve soil, turning it over would aerate the dirt over his permanent "farm" and be a fitting tribute to the “Father of Soil Science.”
Children will fall from the heights of beauty and peace if we don’t eliminate generational grudges.
*Walther, Eric. The Fire-Eaters. LSU Press, 1992.
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