Wayne,
I'm confused. The reason you say you came back (if only temporarily) is because you are opposed to people making claims without properly supporting them. Yet since you have been back virtually all you have done is make claims without supporting them.
- You did post those Springhaven aerials which also appear on Springhaven's website and I thank you for that. But the conclusions you draw from them or would have us draw from them are entirely unsupported. I am not even sure what is Barker's and what is from someone else.
- You characterize the style as "steeplechase" and refer to 500 other aerials, many with the same style, but you fail to offer up any of them and you fail to detail or explore the similarities or differences between Springhaven and any of the others.
- You continue to trash my essay, without offering any basis whatsoever.
- You praise your own much improved discussion of Merion in your Tome, but fail to offer anything of substance. 200 pages. Wow. And containing documents to which only you have access. Impressive. Membership has its privileges.
- You attack Tom MacWood's knowledge of Barker's work, but you have already admitted that you know nothing about him, so what exactly is your basis for your criticisms of MacWood?
- You again try to sully Tom MacWood's reputation by making vague references to some supposed inappropriateness at Garden City, even though it is at best second hand, and is
an entirely inappropriate avenue for this discussion. (You did similarly with me in the past by spreading false rumors about my round at Merion.)
- You even offer up your unsupported (and I think unsupportable) contention that Merion East represented a transitional course and that it only became great later.
So what is this about? Where is the substance and support you demand of others? Are you only back to take shots at me, my essay, and Tom MacWood?
Since it is campaign season: Where is the beef?
By the way, please stop using my essay to try and trash Tom MacWood. His contributions were credited in the essay, and mostly involved filling in the background info on Barker, and after further research I believe that everything in the Barker section was accurate. Other than the info Barker, Tom was very helpful in a general sense and probably in a few ways that are not coming to me right now. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to diminish his assistance, but he deserves
no blame for any shortcomings or errors in the essay. Those are mine and mine alone.
For example, connecting Barker and Merion was me. As I have said in the past, my essay probably downplays the connection a bit too much, and I did make one assumption about that connection that I have reconsidered and I will update it the next draft. I am sure Tom would have done a better job of connecting these dots, so I probably should have leaned on him further.
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Tom MacWood
The Springhaven photos aren't really shocking. There was some very interesting stuff there. My point was that these 1924 photographs are far from dispositive regarding Barker's style, especially if Barker only staked out the bunkers. Plus I am continually amazed with what Wayne asks for as far as support from others, as compared to what he offers up as support himself.
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"PS: I'm sorry for the confusion regarding Barker's involvement, I was influenced by Mr. Verdant Greene's comments from the beginning of this thread."
I think I can see that but no problem. If Verdant Greene said Lloyd contacted and paid Barker for MCC he was wrong. It wasn't Lloyd, it was George Connell. The MCC Search Committee (which Lloyd was on) report to the MCC Board made that very clear. Too bad you never read that. I think David Moriarty had that documentation all along but maybe he forgot to use it as it may not have fit into the trumped up agenda of his essay or something. You should have gone to the source in the first place but you never have. We've been telling you that for years now. I guess you never will listen. Verdant Greene probably was something of an insider around here but in this case his article was not as accurate as the source---eg the MCC Search Committee and the MCC board. After-all they weren't the ones writing newspaper articles, they were the ones who were actually directly involved in the creation of Merion East.
- I believe there are other newspaper accounts that credit Lloyd (and or Griscom?) with bringing in Connell, and I believe I have pointed them out before.
- I didn't include discussion of the documentation in my essay? Tom, again and again you false claim I omitted things from my essay. It is obvious that you either did not read it or you failed comprehend it at all. Yet you go on and on in criticism.
- This notion that Tom MacWood should have gone to the source is nonsense. Between Tom and I, we had almost all of the information you had, plus much more. In fact, you guys did not have much of this stuff. Or rather, I should say that you had it right in front of your noses, but you either forgot about it, ignored it, or concealed it. I brought the reports in question to Wayne's attention, and even sent it to him at his request. It was only later that he went and got his own copy. [He also promised me copies of what he retreived, but Wayne has never provided me with the promised copies. So much for honor and honesty.]
Plus, when we did try to access information from you guys, you guys refused to provide it. Remember when you falsely claimed that you and Wayne had documentation about Merion purchasing the property in 1909. I asked you for it, and I believe your comment was something like
you don't expect us to do all your research for you, do you? And Wayne guards his Flynn work like an old shrew guarding old family recipes. I've repeatedly asked to see his work on Merion, to no avail.
Say what you will about my work on Merion, but it is out there for everyone to see, everyone to critique, everyone to challenge. The way it should be and must be if one expects the work to be taken seriously. Otherwise it should be dismissed in its entirely as nothing but a vanity piece, like your work on Merion and Flynn with Wayne.