so colorful,
the elder's language~
snoose hollow
December 26, 2024
The Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) released its annual
report on December 20, highlighting severe human rights viol...
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3 comments:
Wonderful!
Looks like something out of a John Ford western. Stagecoach, maybe.
Wave's of immigrant's lived in the Hollow 'til the early sixties, I believe it was. Swedes, Italians, Mexicans, Irish, you name it. Just below the Hamm family mansion, no running water or electric for most of that time. History repeats itself; Now it's Hmong, Somalian, Mexican, Central American, African, Chinese following the same patterns, living in the same neighborhoods, and experiencing many of the same cultural hurdles. In the absentee-owner apartment market, sometimes with no running water, electric or heat.
Note the nearly treeless landscape of this early 20th century photo of Swede Hollow, made a city park in the late seventies by the influence of neighborhood activism. Now, secondary growth has replaced the bare hills after decades of human-caused erosion, though not enough soil remains on the limestone escarpment for any trees to live to full maturity. Another 200 years, maybe, for the soil to build up again. To the left foreground, a dump has been revealed - glass bottles and artifacts peek through washed out soil and brush, a museum of sorts, the cast-off debris of groups of people who were outcasts themselves.
(Click on the label beneath the post for more current images of the Hollow.)
The dialect I hear in my head is one a hundred years old - almost extinguished from the East Side's culture as the demographic ages. A hardened, citified Scandanavian with Irish lilts and Italian bluntness, at once rambling and at the same time to the point. No where else in America could it be heard. American, from an underdog's viewpoint, with a familiarity recognizeable in close-knit societies that share a common hardship.
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