Mitakuyapi,
Well, through my experience at Comanchero Canyons, I must confess that I have been quite impressed by the drive of the local people of the Quitaque are in preserving their history. As I may have mentioned in a prior post, this museum is really a result of “grassroots” efforts to hang on to some of the history of the west Texas area, and in particular, that of Briscoe and the surrounding counties here. Many of the artifacts (and I should have some pics) have actually been found by two local guys, Jerry Leatherman and Ron Carpenter. These men, supported by their community, have created a museum here that grows month-by-month, and the drive of these guys in researching the history and running a museum all in their ‘spare time’ is really pretty astounding.
During the past few times up to the museum, I have even gotten to learn some interesting and even unconventional artifact cleaning methods that they just didn’t teach me in school… From traditional scrubbing and elbow grease (using safe, non-damaging cleaners of course) to utilizing cactus spines (which are really quite abundant) for those difficult to get to parts of objects, it has been a learning experience for sure. In case you are interested, catus spines work so well because they can be used to remove grime, but are not so abrasive that they damage or scratch objects.
Again, I hope that everyone else with Ogallala Commons is also meeting interesting people and learning cool things. Until next time…
pidamaya (thanks!),
brian
