I was gifted a Weeks Myopia history book for xmas...so that is cool, regardless of what everyone thinks of it...
Brad, Sounds like a very cool Christmas gift.
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One of the real disappointments of these threads to me is - as Brad's post implies - that these debates are usually framed as if some of us have little respect or appreciation for the work of others like Weeks who have tried to figure these things out in the past. Framing it in such a manner greatly distorts what is really ongoing, and does a disservice to anyone who has ever bothered to try and figure these thing out, including Weeks.
I've said repeatedly on this thread and others that I have great respect for anyone who tries to sort out these confusing histories. Unlike most who post here, I know firsthand how difficult and confusing these early sources can be to decipher. Whatever the source, the available information is undoubtedly less than perfect, yet the expectation is for a coherent and cohesive narrative that makes complete sense in all aspects. While I don't own it myself, I have little doubt that Weeks did the best he could with the information he had, which is all that can be expected of any researcher.
From my perspective, though, what has happened is that some here have chosen to treat these club histories as something they were never intended to be. They are not Bibles. They are not Gospels. They are not infallible. I have yet to see one that did not contain what I view as significant factual shortcomings, especially when it comes to these earliest of courses.
Surely if Weeks were around he would readily acknowledge that his information was not perfect, complete, or infallible. Surely he did not have internet databases, or access to multiple newspaper accounts. Had he seen the repeated reports that WILLIE CAMPBELL "LAID OUT" THE ORIGINAL COURSE, or even the multiple mentions that Campbell was the professional at Myopia in 1896, he would have mentioned it. Had he known specifically what went on in March of 1893, would not have written about what these guys "probably" marked off the greens with pegs. Had he been working off of complete minutes covering the details of what happened, he would have needed to speculate and he surely would have known the date of the Executive Meeting and the correct name of the Club Secretary. It is inevitable that new information becomes available, and as the source material changes, so to must these histories, that is if one is concerned with accuracy.
Yet some here pretend as if once it is down on paper in book form, and once a Club stamps their endorsement on a version, that the history is set in stone. That it is unchallengeable SCRIPTURE, now and for ever.
It must be correct, otherwise Myopia wouldn't have endorsed it. Here is how TEPaul put it in post 1067(!):
There is no reason at all for anyone to try to change that history today or at any time in the future. It's done now and it was all well enough recorded!That is what we are dealing with here. An unreasonable and undying loyalty to this single version of the history. An assumption that this version is infallible and all other source material must be read as consistent with this account or discounted. It must be both the starting point and conclusion of all future research.
For example, in the same post, TEPaul acknowledges that Campbell must have done something, but then immediately discounts and dismisses the importance of his involvement using nothing but his questionalbe interpretation the Weeks text. Campbell
"obviously had something to do with it in 1894 but apparently not enough for the club to mention because they just never felt it was significant enough." The Weeks book as the Holy Scripture of Myopia, the starting point, and the end point. If Weeks didn't mention Campbell, well then Campbell must not have been very important, and if Campbell wasn't very important, well the Weeks wouldn't have mentioned it, etc. Weeks as the end-all and be-all. As TEPaul put it in post in post 1203, with my emphasis:
I realize we all may have different styles and methods of doing research and analyzing things but when I read something like that in Weeks's book and the thought occurs to me where he may've been looking when he wrote that information, my first inclination is to start at the time he was writing about and look there and go forward from there if I have to rather than starting with Wade in 1974 or Weeks in 1975 and go backward looking for the first evidence of the mention of it. And I'm glad I did it that way as it saved me 80 to 81 years of looking through! This forms the basis of the disagreement here. Trust in Weeks. If it happened and was important, Weeks covered it. Therefore, if Weeks did not cover it, then it didn't happen, or was at least not important enough to mention.
Did Weeks think he was writing infallible and unquestionable Scripture? Did he intend to right the Myopia Bible, Weeks Version? Somehow I doubt it. Yet TEPaul, Brauer, and Cirba have all maintained this postion, and repeatedly so.
What all these threads come down to: Do we view history as something to be proclaimed by the Club involved or its self-appointed spokespersons (who like true Prophets rarely come up with much proof) and then trusted and obeyed as Scripture? Or do we view history as an evolving conversation, one that changes and becomes more refined as new information and better analysis becomes available?
In my view, the
HISTORY AS SCRIPTURE is not history at all. It is more akin to religion. And the approach is not even fair to these Clubs. Not in the least bit. They may think they pretty much know what happened, but they couldn't possibly know exactly what happened. Such is the nature of history, and this is why they commissioned their club histories in the first place; to preserve as much of the history as they can before it becomes too vague, amorphous, and flawed to ever piece together again.
The Clubs and the authors undoubtedly tried to get it exactly right, but holding them out as able to Christen any version as exactly correct is an unreasonable expectation to impose on them. To threat these Clubs and authors think they have it exactly right is to guarantee that they will be proven wrong. That is not fair to them and especially unfair to the authors, because no historian worth his salt would ever claim to be infallible. Were history easy to perfectly unravel, there would have been no need for them in the first place.