Holy Days in the Apple Pi Inn: Presidents’ Day

How do you tell time in a structure that extends over two centuries? If I follow Paul Ricoeur’s advice that the only human time is narrated time, then the question is, where to begin, develop or end the story? It appears I need both memory and imagination for “an actual memory consists in the presence to the mind of an image—an icon—presenting an absent thing, namely an event which occurred earlier, that is before we evoke it, declare it, or tell a story about it.” (Memory, Narrativity, Self and the Challenge to Think God. p4)

What comes to mind are the three questions once used to determine mental competence. “Do you know what year it is? Do you know who is president?” (I’ve forgotten the third question, which isn’t a good sign.)

What year is it? Who is president?

The first story/structure embedded in this Inn is a three -storied log cabin built in 1800, the year after George Washington died. He’d surveyed in this area when it was a colony called Virginia, and that was the state he was laid to rest. His picture now hangs in what used to be a parlor.

The other end of the Inn is linked to the second icon of national memory: Abraham Lincoln. It was built the year after Lincoln was assassinated, 1866. It intersects the story of presidents and my presence in the story. Mary Jane Bee, my great, great, grandmother, was a widow with five children to raise after the War. She purchased the Kanawha Hotel for $400 dollars. (Her father-in-law, Ephraim Bee named one of his daughters, West Virginia, to celebrate Lincoln’s declaration of statehood.)

So what time is it in a structure that began in one state and ends in another? Washington presides at one end, and Lincoln at the other. My mother used this space to teach history like it was a storybook. Any man, woman, or child who came within her reach took a tour of a nation. Copies of the constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, WV statehood papers, maps, flags, souvenirs from every state and pictures of presidents and their first ladies filled every shelf and corner.

I’ve packed away most this history, leaving the bust of Lincoln and the picture of George in place. We’re in the now or never repair cycle. It seems fitting that this rescue mission is during Obama’s presidency. “When in the course of human events…” “We, the people”…”Mountaineers are always free.” “With malice toward none, with charity for all…” “Angels of our better nature…”

What time is it? Presidents’ Day, of course