My website, America Comes Alive!, is dedicated to celebrating the greatness of this country, but the headlines of the weekend were making this difficult.

At a time when our most serious thoughts should be reserved for gratitude to our veterans and those currently serving our country, our attention has been drawn to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“These are America’s wetlands,” said Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon before Congress last week as he fought back tears. Most of us could easily cry along with him. What’s going to happen to local residents affected by the spill? To the fish and wildlife? To the workers down in the area helping with clean-up? To our economy? Even with threat of a criminal suit against them, we know somehow BP won’t pay for all the costs incurred.

Congress has yet to finish wrestling with badly needed financial reform, and they haven’t begun on immigration discussions. Is anything going well?

As I thought about how to feel more optimistic about the country — and renew my energy for my website — my thoughts turned to my experiences of the last few months. I began to see that if I “thought local,” there was cheering news.

Backing up for just a moment, I was raised in Pueblo, Colorado by get-it-done parents who were never daunted by having to pick up where others left off. My mother worked hard to obtain funding for a community arts center; later she put that same energy into revitalizing downtown with a Riverwalk. My father ran a local insurance company that encouraged employees to take paid time off for volunteer work while he personally served for many years on the water board, perhaps one of the most important community boards in any town in the West.

With that background, I started looking around my area in suburban New York. Our government representatives are often viewed poorly, but I have observed firsthand how hard Congresswoman Nita Lowey–who originally began working for change as a PTA member and president–and her staff work.

New York State Assemblymember George Latimer has voluntarily reduced his own state salary in recognition of our state’s fiscal crunch, and many of us in the community actually suspect Latimer and Westchester County Legislator Judy Myers have cloned themselves. Both these public servants appear at more local activities than one can imagine—and still get their work done. No amount of salary–particularly theirs–could justify their tireless efforts on citizens’ behalf.

The next people who came to mind as inspirational were those I have met through a Westchester for Change, a grassroots group made up of community dynamos who are making a difference.

I thought, too, of my friend in Rye Brook whose son is among the many enlisting in the military and will start boot camp this summer. I tip my hat to him and know that every family in those circumstances needs a stiff upper lip as they watch sons and daughters go.

And then I thought of my research trip to Frederick, Maryland and the incredibly knowledgeable people I met each day who are dedicated to preserving an America we can love. Park service employees may as well have Ph.Ds in their topics… they are so good at telling the American story.

I think, too, of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and the dentist, Dr. Gordy Dammann, whose avid collecting of medical items dating to the 1860s provided the basis to get this fascinating museum up and running.

Next, my memory lights up at the thought of George Lewis, a veterinarian, who spent many years working at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Maryland. Now he cheerfully has dedicated himself to working to raise money to restore the Catoctin Aqueduct. George could make anything interesting. (Next posting I’ll tell you about saving this aqueduct and why it matters.)

With these “local heroes” fresh in my mind, I’m feeling better. I’m hoping that you, too, will find hope in thinking of the local people in your community who do so much–maybe it’s you.

But before forgetting about the oil spill, there is one other thing each of us can do: conserve energy. We live in a market-driven country, and the only reason BP was in the Gulf drilling ever-deeper for more oil is because we’re buying it.

Make certain your next car is fuel-efficient, conserve on heating and air conditioning as much as you can, and walk or take public transportation some of the time. If all of us vote with our wallets, business and government will hear.

In the meantime, keep telling your representatives that you want an ethical government that looks forward–we need to take care of our people, improve our decaying infrastructure, and focus on what we can do to make things better for our children’s children.

And if you want some heartening reminders of our admirable heritage, bookmark my site, www.americacomesalive.com. It is guaranteed to make you feel better about our country.

Earlier this month on my trip to Frederick, Maryland, the tourism board had organized wonderful days for me. Among the sites they planned for me to visit was Schifferstadt Museum. The house, now an architecture museum, was built by a German family in 1756 and is one of the oldest houses still standing in Frederick County. The museum’s prized possession is an original jamb oven, which would have provided smoke-free heat to the second-floor bedrooms.

I was a bit puzzled by this stop because my articles generally focus on the last 150 years of American history. But the people organizing my trip had done a remarkable job, so I was open to their suggestions.

As it happened, I learned a great deal from the visit, and in the process, I am reminded of the importance of preservation.

There are three messages I can easily take away from my visit to Schifferstadt:

1. Schifferstadt offers Frederick County the opportunity to “tell an important part of their story.” The German influence in the area was strong. In the 1680s William Penn traveled to southern Germany to encourage Germans to come to the area. German people were viewed as good farmers and hard workers, and they were probably seen as ideal candidates to develop farms and produce food for the region. Penn may have also seen them as good “buffers” between the English and the Indians farther west. All in all, this story is important to Frederick County as well as America at large.

2. The 1756 house had been a rental during most of the 20th century, so when Schifferstadt was taken over by the Frederick County Landmarks Foundation, they had fewer layers of modernization to remove than they might have had if a homeowner had been investing in full modernization. Among their discoveries as they peeled the building back to its original state was an intact five-plate iron stove in the wall between two bedrooms. This would have been a very welcome heating device in the 1750s. The stove is cube-shaped with iron plates on five sides; the sixth side could be opened and accessed from the hallway and its in-the-wall location funneled smoke directly into a chimney. The five iron plates would have radiated heat much the way today’s iron radiators retain heat even after the initial steam comes through. In seeing this stove, we are reminded of what our forefathers went through in coming to this country and having to survive very cold winters. It also reminds us how fortunate we are that we touch a thermostat to heat a room; we don’t have to stoke a fire in a five-plate stove.

3. My final lesson? Actually it’s my favorite. The largest bedroom upstairs was not the master bedroom—it was the guest room. Why? Because in these days, people had no regularly published newspapers, and letters were few and far between. A visitor was a welcome news source, and therefore, there was every reason to give them the best room in the house!

So I am reminded that preservation is important, but of course, I also know that it is problematic. As I watch my own county wrestle with what to preserve and what not to preserve, there are no easy answers. We can’t save everything. Most Americans do want access to a Wal-Mart or a fast-food restaurant now and then, and older buildings are costly to restore and costly to maintain, even if they tell important stories.

As it happens, the most recent issue of Preservation magazine has an interview with Richard Moe, the outgoing president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation who is retiring after 17 years, and Moe suggests the answer. The National Trust is now encouraging communities to look at buildings and consider adaptive re-use. Old buildings are being re-fit to be green, and in the process, an increasing number of communities are taking advantage of the tax breaks on this type of development. This permits communities to maintain the character of a neighborhood while also creating buildings that can be a useful part of 21st century America.

In his remarks in the magazine, Moe states the goal of preservation as this: “To conserve the best of the past, blend it with the new, and provide more livable communities.”

If this can be done, it lets us maintain certain reminders of our past. While the Schifferstadts of the future may also need to be used as community meeting houses or county offices, it’s wonderful if we can maintain some of our country’s character.

Seeing Schifferstadt and the five-plate oven can’t help but elicit comments like, “Can you believe how ingenious this was for their time? Can you believe how far we’ve come?” And most important, “If our forefathers can do that, then just think of all I can do with the resources of today.”

Our country is strong because many individuals have worked hard at figuring out ways to solve difficult issues. So thank you, Frederick, and all communities who preserve some of the past. These are tangible reminders not only of how far we’ve come but also how far we can go.

Frederick County Tourism Council

Journey Through Hallowed Ground