Remember the sing-songy verse you learned in elementary school: "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue"? And then, of course, the ships were named: The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.
When I was younger, I thought it was great thing what Columbus did; afterall, without him, I wouldn't be in this great land.
Or would I?
Now it's more, We're celebrating someone getting lost.
How can one discover what isn't lost? People were on this land doing quite well, thank you very much. So then I thought about the word discover and flipped open Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary to see what synonyms accompanied the word. I found that discover also means expose - "to make known." That's more like it; he made known that there was land that other people had already known existed.
I think of my European ancestors, and sometimes they sadden me. It seems wherever they ventured, they exploited it. Too bad the Native Americans didn't have the means like Japan did when they reclosed their ports to Western traders in the seventeenth century, remaining, basically, in isolation until the 1850s. What would this land be today if Columbus was met with a bit more resistance? But Native Americans felt they didn't own the land; who were they to turn someone away...
I heard someone once say that in the grand scheme of things, America was "discovered" to later (being now) to help Israel. I have to think about that some more...Do more Jews reside in America than any other place?
So, on those trips when your spouse won't stop and ask directions, let him go. Who knows what fantastic "discovery" you'll find! Just don't mislabel the people you meet.
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