With Any Luck...

...Or at least industriousness, by the time you read this, I will be on my way to a gathering of the Indiana Historical Radio Society, an organization to which I am unable to devote as much tame time as I'd like.

Someone over Tam's way lauded the British Royal Family (IMO, the nation-state version of purse dogs and I'm much relieved to see they've decided to outcross back to wild stock again, as the breed had got a bit odd-looking in the previous generation) as the "custodians of living history." And maybe they are; other than dragging an entire nation (and a goodly chunk of the rest of the world, at least the parts that speak some flavor of English some of the time) to a standstill every time they get married or crowned or have the poor timing to die, they're a harmless enough affectation. (Not so much in the way of custodians, though -- I doubt a one of them would know how to use a mop bucket, even after it bit them. Um, on second thought the Queen might; she seems sensible enough).

But you know who else is a "custodian of living history?" You are and places like Etsy and eBay are, too. Every time you turn that bedanged Colonial chestnut roaster or the hideous set of matched Art Deco splatchet forks into money by putting them in the hands of some yoik who thinks they are the greatest things evar, you have successfully custodialized some history. I should not be in the least surprised to learn that more of that sort of thing is going on now than has ever gone on before.

And you don't even need blue blood to do it! (This is good -- those horseshoe crabs take a lot of looking after.)