Record a historic moment

The present is the past of the future.

Right now, these simple words carry the weight of a global experience each of us views differently.

Documenting this situation as we live it presents an extremely rare opportunity to make use of social media and technology, as well as traditional writing and photography, to create a body of work future historians can use.

Those of us working for the Anoka County Historical Society have taken ourselves to home offices, continuing the services of research and education thanks to the cloud. We continue to comb through the archives looking for breadcrumbs left by our fellow community members to recreate their experiences and learn from them.

We quote lines from journals and diaries that “tell it like it is” rather than the filtered perceptions of past events found in newspapers, business newsletters or club publications. We reprint images of Main Street or farms or family gatherings that on the one hand make us feel like nothing changes and on the other, remind us that everything has.

What will the archives of the ACHS look like 50 years from now? What will they contain relating to this year? Can you imagine what the school children yet to be born will ask us to remember about this COVID-19 pandemic? What will we remember? Will social media “memories” still be around to provide that archive?

I would hazard a guess we would remember the toilet paper shortage and empty shelves. Do you have pictures to illustrate it? What did it feel like the first time you stood in those aisles, out of control and suppressing panic? Were you mentally designing a pattern for reusable rags? Considering the purchase of a bidet? When the shortages began to spread to the canned goods shelves or you had to settle for your not-so-favorite brand, did your internal monologue change, or were you simply more resigned?

I would also suppose we could tell stories of our quarantine — those few weeks at home with only, well … with only EVERYTHING. Let’s be honest. The hardest part of accomplishing this for many people is the crunch our social lives have absorbed. But what of the opportunities that have come from this? The new way we’re using technology, the board games, challenges and social media hashtags to unite a shared experience? How many home improvement projects have you checked off that to-do list? Oh, and how CLEAN everything is. Talk about a spring project.

What if you’re one of the essential service workers? What could the world do with remembering about your role in this pandemic? Could the general population be reminded that delivery services continued? That trash disposal remains uninterrupted? The water runs, the phones are happy, the police and fire departments respond. What does it feel like, look like, to be out on the roads with no traffic jams? In parking ramps with empty spaces? On sidewalks with no other humans?

Or perhaps you lost your job due to the virus and face an uncertain financial future. How do you feel, and what thoughts are running through your head? What are your hopes, and will you try next?

Let’s, of course, not forget about health care. Did you ever think you or someone you know would be sewing masks for the American hospital system? That we could ever simply not have enough critical machines to go around? That the dental cleaning you dreaded would become a luxury? That you would put off a routine physical exam or eye appointment because the office closed?

The historical society’s museum building has lost its homey feel. When staff stops in on a rotating “one per day” schedule to pick up materials for the next week, it feels dark and silent. Maybe even a little foreboding. It has lost the joyful laughter of volunteers, the scent of doughnuts and the jangle of phones ringing. We miss the conversations with our “regulars” who use the public computers, the researchers eager to tell stories of their ancestors, the programs where we can see the “lightbulb moments” occur and history come alive. On the flip side, we have conference calls and Zoom-enabled coffee meetups. We’re getting those back-burner projects done and focusing on one project at a time.

As Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” That first paragraph in “A Tale of Two Cities” ends with the speaker essentially saying the time remembered was so vastly different than the present, it could only be compared with the highest authority possible. I ask you now — what has a higher authority than primary resources set down by those witnessing the events as they unfold? Please submit your materials on AnokaCountyHistory.org or take our survey.

Rebecca Ebnet-Desens is the executive director of the Anoka County Historical Society.