Jackie Burrell, Writer

Do time travelers suffer jet lag? I’ve spent entirely too much time in the 19th century lately, plunging down research rabbit holes and popping back up all dazed and desynchronized. I’ve never been much of a souvenir collector, but I don’t know what else to call the bits and bobs banging around my brain after one of these research marathons. Flusterment is a word! “Some pumpkins” is the opposite of “small potatoes”! Here, I’d thought it was the “6-7” of 1849. Turns out “some pumpkins” makes perfect sense, even if sounds goofy as hell.

And then there’s this: The Tesla in your driveway is substantially larger than a covered wagon ever was, but the latter could hold 2,000 pounds of supplies, enough to get you across the Oregon Trail and kickstart your new life without any involvement from Elon Musk. Less than a dozen feet long and just four feet wide, that wagon had no room for clutter. No space for rustic signs that say, “Live. Love. Trail.” No snowglobe collections. No dungarees that might fit again, if you can shed those last 10 pounds. It makes me wonder how Marie Kondo might have fared on the Oregon Trail. Sure that bushel of beans sparks joy, but do you really need four of them? (Ahem. Yes, you do. A bushel for every member of the family.) As for that pianoforte…

Which brings us to the leaverites. So many things we cringe about now — graffiti, consumerism, reckless waste — seem to be deeply ingrained in the human psyche. The Oregon Trail was littered with discarded possessions from end to end. We’re talking pianos, settees, treasures and trash. Emigrants even had a name for the debris. They called them leaverites. As in, “That (massively heavy object) you dragged out here because it sparked joy? Yeah, leave ’er right there.”