WEBSTER COUNTY, Ky. (1/13/13) - Why is it that people have some sick aversion to history? If something happened involving a member of your family a hundred years ago, good or bad, you should want to know it. But it is like some people are afraid of the past.

You know that skeleton in your closet? It is all in your head. It’s not going to jump out and attack you, especially not if you know it’s there.

Edmond Burke said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

If those words are even close to being true, then a lot of people are in for a rough time.

You should honor your ancestors by remembering them, whether they did good things or bad. No matter whether they were sinners or saints, the first step to honoring them is remembering who they were and what they did.

When you push them aside and hide them away, there is no honor in that.

I did not know my Great Grandfather James Hughes because he died when my father was a year old, and the family simply never talked about it. It appears that some people knew his story, but rather than passing it down, they tried to make it go away. They want to remember the good in the man and pretend nothing bad ever happened.

But we are all human, and inside every human there is good and bad. Everyone has a little saint and a little sinner inside, it all comes down to the choices you make.

I’m told that on his death bed James Hughes told one of his daughters that he was ready to meet God. I understand wanting to remember him that way, and hopefully one day I’ll have the chance to discuss the matter with him personally. But is that who he was in February 1896? Who really knows? Not me and not ANY one else alive.

When I look back at my family tree, I don’t just want to know names and dates. I want to know who these people were. James’ grandfather was Joseph Daniel Hughes, the school master in Henderson, KY in 1850.

He was from Maryland, possibly in the area near Frederick. In the first half of the 1800’s there were two brothers, Ezekial and Jeremiah Hughes in Frederick, Maryland. One owned the Nile’s National Register and the other owned the Herald. They were known for believing that journalist must print the truth. I don’t know if we’re related, but I agree with them.

I’m learning my history, but so many people are forgetting it.

What about the history of Webster County? How many teenagers in Webster County today know who Richard Savage was?

Providence has changed so much during my lifetime, it gets hard to remember everything.

I’ve had to go to Cole Plaza a few times in the last couple of months, and oddly every single time I miss the turn. It's like that building doesn’t exist in my mind. I wasn’t old enough to drive when the car lot closed, and then it was a telemarketing company that I never visited.

I’m trying to remember Providence as it was when I was young.

In the 80’s Cole Plaza was Ridley’s car lot. There was a house on the spot where the Movie Gallery building stands, and that was our only video store-but you could also go to Sureway and eventually Big Daddy’s IGA (now Ewing’s) and rent VHS tapes and laser discs as well.

On West Main where the recycling center is, the building for the Providence bowling alley still stood, and Curt Mays ran a little grocery store across the road.

We had a Western Auto store up town, right next to the movie theater. When the theater closed another one opened in one of the buildings where Sav-A-Lot and Do-It-Best now stand. (I could have those reversed.)

I can’t remember what stood where Hucks is now, but the EZ Shop was the biggest gas station in town. You could also go to the Pantry on 41A or uptown where the Alternative is. Hudson’s BP was on the south side of town and Bear Russel was running his service station on Broadway.

Pizza Hut was the place to go, because we didn’t have a McDonalds, although back then we still had Druther’s. (I’m told there is still one in Campbellsville)

All you have to do is repress a few facts and then history has no meaning. Let's not do that, let's remember what happened in the past.

 
What I’m Reading

Horns by Joe Hill. This is the second novel from the son of horror legend Stephen King. The best way I can think of to describe him is to say that he writes like his daddy did in the 1970’s.

In the book we meet Ignatius “Ig” Perrish, who wakes up one morning after a drunken night to find that he has sprouted bony, sensitive horns from his temples. Ig is the second son of a renowned musician and the younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, Terry Perrish. Within his hometown of Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig had position and security, but the rape and murder of his girlfriend, Merrin Williams, changed all that. Though he was neither charged or tried (nor had committed the crime), Ig is largely considered guilty in public opinion.

The Horns give Ig unnatural powers. Satanic powers perhaps. Powers that give him the ability to get revenge or to redeem himself.

Look for the movie version of Horns later this year starting Daniel Radcliff.
 
Matt Hughes
J-E News Editor

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