HISTORIANS DON’T GET INVITED TO PARTIES

Maybe some do. Get invited to parties, that is! Generally we’re a pretty boring lot, if you don’t have an interest in vigorously spun tales of yore. It goes back to high school history unfortunately, that didn’t impress upon the general student body, a passion to pursue it as a hobby once the final mark was scratched onto the report form. Those of us who have taken up as historians, antiquaries, and teachers of such, have been tarred by the same old brush. “Run, run, as fast as you can, here comes an historian. They’ll regale you with stories about old farts and the stuff old farts did before we were even born!”

Well, it’s sort of like that but most of us have learned to be good humored about our love for history, never apologetic, and never without footnotes and sidebars of explanation to validate our positions. Believe it or not, gatherings of historians can get quite jovial until it comes to the “in my opinion” part of the evening, when blood can boil....I mean get tepid, at the slightest provocation, which could be the result of a cocky contemporary taking liberty with a long held fact.

As much as I am an historian, (which kept my boys’ school chums away from our house), I am also very much a believer in the balance between what is relevant today, and what is an historic burden to maintain in perpetuity. It is perceived by many that us historians are the bane of everything modern, and are the thorns against the ease of progress in a modern world. We stop the destruction of old and dear buildings on the urban landscape, and we fuss and fume about historically significant sites that require lengthy research and digs, while earth movers sit idle, and personnel twiddle their thumbs to a developer’s howling outrage. Sometimes this is true, and again we make no apology. Often however, we do know what is best for the situation of present tense, and believe it or not, progress doesn’t, as a commonality, stab us in the heart each time we’re in its path. There are contemplative moments when we ponder aloud and pen in lengthy tomes like this, why we weren’t utilized in the decision making process, because we know about the many precedents that broke trail from here to there.

Many of my cronies, in this history-sparing and heritage promoting enterprise, are routinely miffed about why they have been bypassed yet again, when a municipal government was grappling with an historical conundrum of some significance, yet could not see their way to incorporating sage advice, learned from years of research, by inviting a wee dram of input from our rank and file. When we are, on occasion, invited to speak to such an issue of historic concern, we are absolutely delighted, and it would only be on the rarest of occasions when one of us would balk at the opportunity presented.....or strike the presenter.

Some elected folks believe us to be witch doctors who can curse projects and progress. In the case of the recent debacle over Bracebridge’s Jubilee Park, the outright refusal of the town to seek an opinion of regional historians, regarding a matter of considerable historic precedent, councillors decided that this would bring about damaging contrary opinion, and thus, selling their park-off for a university campus would be at risk. What because we’re smarter than they are? Wiser? More capable of mounting an argument than the one they had for selling an heirloom property that an urban neighborhood badly needed? This is a capital reason historians don’t get invited to opine often these days. We bring truth to cut through the fiction and blatant propaganda. The historians lost the fight to save Jubilee Park, and we will always have regrets.

In Gravenhurst we have a highly competent and incredibly co-operative community of history lovers, hard-core and gentle hobbyists, who are always willing to offer a hand on a delicate issue, and their sole purpose is to strengthen the links of community to its founding, not beat-down progress before it can muster. Yet most of us still yawn and fidget, feeling somewhat left out from our community’s future, because we are looked at as staunch rivals of anything contemporary or futuristic. Truth is, us historical types would be pretty much out of business if it wasn’t for the fact that history is being made every second of the rolling year.....such that this column, as I write it now, is already antiquated by time it reaches the next key stroke. So we are very much aware of contemporary issues, and understand how it all comes together. Historians know a lot about Gravenhurst’s cultural, social, economic and political past, that by golly, could benefit a council hopeful looking to broaden their own perspectives, and be sure of their claims well in advance of public presentations......incidentally, with quite a representation of historians occupying the seats out front, who make it a point to know what’s happening in their hometown, and are unafraid of making corrections and raising points of order.

We are sharing, sensitive, approachable folks living amongst you, and while it’s true we can be quite judgmental, we will back up our opinions with facts,....ones we’ve meticulously gathered in the many decades since we began studying our home region. Don’t fear us because of the information we possess. We have come upon it honestly. Take advantage of us.....it’s quite all right. We’ll thank you politely for thinking of us.

You can not hope to properly understand what makes a home region tick by judging everything that is present tense. And you couldn’t possibly appreciate history, if you didn’t incorporate the reality of the present. Many, many lives passed have influenced the way we live at this moment. Then to discount the viewpoints of those who pay attention to those profound and subtle influences cast by others, is to fall prey to a serious apathy of conscience,...... which indeed, in many past cases, has played a key role in the desecration of history and heritage for minimal if any tangible gain.

We don’t get too disappointed any more when we’re bypassed for social events, and if we get invited to one fete out of ten we’re absolutely speechless, we all feel there is more for us to contribute that justifies our years of research. So don’t fear us because we’ll rain on your parade, or stop you from digging a garden on ground that may hold buried treasure. Rather, appreciate the fact, we are hometown resources always ready to play our part in regional, provincial, national heritage.

We eat cheese and sip wine, watch Coronation Street sometimes, itch when we have to, and get blisters on our hands from working in the garden. Yup, we’re just run of the mill historians living in Ontario’s magnificent hinterland. Give us a call some time.