She Said-TOPIC: 16-foot bicentennial monument-Monument one small way to remember our heritage

With all the effort (and money) being expended to beautify our downtown area, the courthouse art display/sculpture area with its benches, walkways and landscaping will be an excellent addition, especially since it’s not coming at taxpayers’ expense.

Celebration of our roots and renewed pride in our history as a community is a good thing, especially coming at a time when things aren’t looking so rosy economically.

In this day and age when everything rushes by so rapidly, it is a very good thing to remind ourselves of the men and women who settled here when Warren County was just a good piece of land with potential. Think of the work: long, long hours of work, sunup to sundown. The tilling of the soil, planting of seed, clearing of land, building fences, feeding livestock. Cooking on old iron stoves or even over fireplaces, picking vegetables from the garden for supper, making soap, candles for your family, toting water from the well or spring, washing laundry on old scrub-boards.

No, life’s not easy now ‘ nor was it then.

Our heritage is something to take great pride in. Those folks survived and thrived, both individually and as a community. So can we.

Nowadays it takes as much tenacity, as much perseverance and hard work to succeed as it did back then. Reminding ourselves of that is also a good thing, especially if it can give us renewed purpose as a community. As a community that must pull together to face the trials modern society can provide, drawing on the strength of the past is essential.

While the exact nature of the sculpture is being kept secret until the July 5 unveiling, I’m hoping for a farmer and mule, tilling the soil or maybe our own version of Johnny Appleseed, with a farmer planting a tree.