"Tom,
I think Kalen puts it rather well. I note your last few posts, including this one, have been more concillatory and I think you are to be commended for that."
Niall:
Thank you; I will try to continue to be concillatory on these Merion threads if I continue on them.
"As someone who is interested in early golf course design, I would like to see you write your own piece on Merion, within the limitations on public disclosure that you feel you are under, but not as a point by point repost to Davids essay but rather as a fresh look giving your own timeline and view on events as you see them. Clearly you have a lot of knowledge on Merion and I for one would prefer to see it written down in an essay rather than having to plough through a thousand and one Merion threads to appreciate it."
Niall, I would point you first to Post #34 and Mike Sweeney's remarks in it and Jim Nugent's response to Mike Sweeney. Jim Nugent feels a counterpoint timeline listing or synopsis to David Moriarty's essay might create the same on-going unresolvable arguments. I understand that but I'm toying with the idea of taking Mike Sweeney's suggestion anyway but with Bradley Anderson's sentiment to just do it without questioning anyone's motives for disagreeing with it----which of course we have done in the past and so has the people disagreeing with our take on Merion's history and who Merion's architects were.
You asked me to just write a timeline of Merion's history as we feel it happened and who did it, but I don't believe that's exactly necessary because my feeling (and us here, including Merion itself) is that that timeline and who did what and when is already accurate, and always has been in Merion's own history which includes its history on its website which anyone on here can access and read.
The only exception we have seen to that accurate Merion history as recorded by Merion which has been revealed as a result of these threads is this event of WHEN Wilson went abroard. Merion's history had that in 1910 and it now seems certain it was in 1912. But the point of that, at least to us, is that it does not change anything about who did Merion and when at all, even though the essayist Moriarty certainly tried to make it seem like it actually changed a lot. In that vein of the mistaken 1910 trip we did discover that that story did not come about for over half a century AFTER the events (1910-1911-1912) we've all and always been discussing on here. In our opinion, it is extremely important that those interested in all this but who have heretofore not understood the details truly understand what this really means (or doesn't mean)!
Again, we don't think think the 1912 trip vs a 1910 trip has anything like the meaning the essay tried to assign to it, and we believe we can explain to anyone interested exactly why and how it doesn't make any real difference that he went in 1912 rather than the mistaken year of 1910.
Other than that a presentation of David Moriaty's timeline of events in his essay that are all about WHAT he SAYS OCCURED and WHEN (which we have never believed is remotely supportable with the real timeline or otherwise), I believe really would be a most valuable lesson in all of this for anyone on here who is truly interested and willing to consider the meaning of these things.
Of course, in the process, I certainly would be asking a few questions about why he puts various events at particular times when it's pretty clear there is and never has been a scintilla of EVIDENCE anywhere or at anytime to do something like that!
And then I think a good many others will come to realize he did it that way simply to be able to make various points, assumptions and premises that could lead to various contentions or conclusions that are unfortunately completely at odds with the chronology of events that were recorded by the men from Merion who were involved in the creation of Merion East back then.