"No, that is is not what I am saying. I am not- what did she say?" he rummaged on his desk for the newspaper article which had so enraged him. "Attempting to destroy the proud history of our small town by adding the memoir of a deranged mind to our town history," he said, slamming the offending paper back down on his desk. "All I am saying is that this happened here and we can't hide it!" he argued.
"It's damaging to admit that such a vivid trade took place here, it reverses a lot of what we thought we knew about the town's founders and-"
"Damaging? To who?" he interrupted his consultant. "We didn't run illegal Opium dens in order to fund the buildings. We didn't set down this "religious morality" society- we're not the hypocrites, they are. And if we lie about the history of this place then we become just like them. Look, I'm not the one who said let's hire these crazy archaeologists to dig a giant hole in the center of the square after some kid found a 19th century toothpick- that was you. And if you recall, it was you who argued that the damned book was such an important find. If I'd had my way this damned 'Acta Fumeria' would have stayed buried along with the crazy italian who wrote it and we could have kept having our 'Butt Out' day without ever thinking more of it. But we can't reverse history. So our smoke free town used to be the hottest opium emporium this side of San Francisco. At least now we can say that we learned from our mistakes, right?"
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