The olden days, not to be confused with the before times, our people once risked everything to go headlong into the unknown frontier. Their stories became the manifest destiny of the west. A wild frontier to be tamed as a matter of providence.
Their stories, our stories, part mythology and part hardened facts, have not aged well against the bitter winds of Progress.
The greatness of these people still litters the prairies, hollows, and mountain towns like so many fallen down barns. The shadows they cast as strong as the day they were lifted from the earth by hand.
They say it has all been discovered. Tamed. Traded. Plotted. Planted. Privatized. What are the young to discover that has not already been done a thousand times over?
So, we stopped telling our stories. Sure, there are some sparse campfires where legends and lore are gifted to the young. But nothing compared to what is possible. Nay, required.
We offer this: A New Frontier. We reclaim those stores from the greasy rails of progress, turn our spirits back toward the west, and declare a future for our children manifest destiny.
The tasks and trades and traditions that once carried our people westward have gone fallow. But the prairie is still there. The frontier is right here where we are now in time and circumstance.
In fact, every spring she grows her long blades up through where the engine once sat in that tractor. She pushes the indifference of time into those details of lost craft and mettle until all we have are some rough-hewn girts and sills of pine.
She reminds us of the work that was once done - and all that was taken for granted because the story, our story, continues even if we have stopped writing for wont of nice things and comforts.
The New Frontier beckons. How will you answer the call?