Shrouded by Time

One Saturday years ago, two young men from the historical society showed up and asked if they could dig in the backyard for old bottles they believed were buried there. I said sure and they went to work.

First, they used a thin metal probe to search for glass around the perimeter of the lot. They explained that in the late nineteenth century water had come to the neighborhood and the residents closed off their outdoor privies in favor of brand new indoor toilets.

They usually threw their old bottles away on top of the contents of the privy and covered the whole mixture with ash from the fireplace. Around that same time, new industrially produced bottles had become available to replace the old hand-blown variety, which no one wanted any longer.

Thus, preserved for over a century the old fashioned bottles had laid there undisturbed by the passage of time. The ground sank about six feet over the decades so now the bottles were buried beneath layers of  earth. Eventually, the men located the site of the old privy from the tell-tale sound of glass struck by the probe.

They then dug a square hole big enough for one of them to fit into it and kept shoveling until they reached the old bottles. Then, one by one they lifted them out of the old soil and showed them to us. There were a couple dozen, many with words on them describing the contents and/or the address of the proprietor.

To us they were exotic specimens. To the men, almost all of the bottles were familiar versions of those they already had in the historical society's collection on display for the public. One bottle, however, was unique so they took that one and left the rest for us.

The photo above shows our bounty, which included a teapot, a milk bottle and a rusted pistol. Many of the bottles had held what were the medical potions popular back in the day. 

Some of what was unearthed remained mysterious. Much of whatever history the cache represented remained shrouded in a past long forgotten.

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From the murky past to the equally murky present, here are the overnight news summaries:

* Amid escalating tensions with both North Korea and Iran, President Donald Trump's advisers say they hesitated to give him military options fearing he might accidentally take the U.S. to war. They informed their counterparts in both countries of the danger, multiple former administration officials say. (CNN)

* Revised hurricane forecasts predict another 10 to 15 named storms -- NOAA’s new hurricane outlook shows so many storms that we may have to turn to the Greek alphabet to name them. (Washington Post)

* 75 years ago, the Enola Gay set out for Hiroshima. No one was sure how the first atomic attack would go. The silver airplane, named for the pilot’s mother, barely got off the ground with the first atomic bomb used in war. (Washington Post)

* New York Attorney General seeks to dissolve NRA, accuses gun rights group of fraud --In a civil lawsuit, Letitia James alleges that CEO Wayne LaPierre and other top leaders drained $64 million from the National Rifle Association over three years. (Washington Post)

* California lawmakers are scrambling to prevent an eviction catastrophe. They don’t have much time before some protections are set to end. (San Francisco Chronicle)

* Masks must now be worn in all child care centers and camps in Michigan (CNN)

* The Brazilian government banned fires in the Amazon in mid-July -- yet there were far more fires last month than the year before, further degrading one of the world's most precious natural resources.The Amazon is considered vital in slowing global warming, and it is home to uncountable species of fauna and flora. Roughly half the size of the United States, it is the largest rainforest on the planet. (CNN)

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Step right up, come on in
If you'd like to take the grand tour
Of a lonely house that once was home sweet home
I have nothing here to sell you
Just some things that I will tell you
Some things I know will chill you to the bone
Over there sits the chair
Where she brang the paper to me
And sit down on my knee and whisper oh I love you
But now she's gone forever
And this old house will never be the same
Without the love that we once knew

Straight ahead that's the bed
Where we lay and love together
And lord knows we had a good thing going here
See her picture on the table
Don't it look like she'd be able
Just to touch me and say good morning dear

There's her rings all her things
And her clothes are in the closet
Just like she left them when she tore my world apart
As you leave you'll see the nursery
Oh she left me without mercy
Taking nothing but our baby and my heart
Step right up, come on in

      -- George Jones

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