[DMoriarty]

Again Tom, I think we need to clarify here.  I haven't made any demands of Merion or MCC.    I've made demands of you."



Why do we need to clarify? What is there to clarify? I understand that as you've said the very same thing to me about twenty times on here and I've told you about twenty times the exact same thing about what I think you need to do about those demands you've made of me for years about a club's private records. You can keep asking but what I'm going to tell you won't change. You are the only person on here who's ever made those kinds of demands (other than your Ohio fellow researcher occasionally). As much as you've tried to encourage others to do so I have never seen anyone else share your opinion or your demands. Everyone else interested in this subject seems fine with my opinion of information I have. I see no reason why you shouldn't be the same. If you never feel that way, then that's your problem, not mine.

It would be a big mistake to assume that those who remain silent agree with you or believe you, just as it would be a big mistake to assume that others do not find your behavior offensive just because they do not speak out.   No one wants to go through what you put others through Tom.   It is outrageous beyond comprehension.    I put up with it because of my interest in Merion and by belief that putting up with it is the only way I'll ever get to the bottom of this. 

[TEPaul]

Bradley:

I love that last post of yours, particularly the last part. It just seems to have such a commonsensical ring and tone to that sensibility. No wonder you are very good at what you are so interested in back then and trying to delve deeply into. To be honest your particular subject of interest is probably a lot harder to figure out what was going on back then and what they were thinking about and trying to deal with than ours with golf architecture.

Sometimes I call this process---looking through the prism backwards. By that I mean I think it is always helpful that one reminds oneself to try always to just strip away from even one's consciousness all those things that we know that they never could've known because it just came after them.

I have sort of a time machine fixation. If I could just go back there then and just see some of those guys like Old Tom Morris, Crump, Leeds, Fownes, H. Wilson, D. Wilson, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Flynn, Tillinghast, Ross, Thomas, Colt, Mackenzie, Macdonald, Whigam, Raynor, Travis, Low, Hutchinson, Simpson, Crane, Behr, Bobby Jones, Hunter, Park Jr, Fowler, Alison et al and maybe talk for ten minutes. What a thing that would be.

And then of course, better still, if you could just turn the switch the other way and bring them up to us and into a world they may never have imagined just to see what they would say and hear what they would think. Can you possibly deny that we might be very surprised in so many ways? 

[DMoriarty]

"Everyone else interested in this subject seems fine with my opinion of information I have. I see no reason why you shouldn't be the same. If you never feel that way, then that's your problem, not mine."

Also Tom,  the reason that I do not accept what you tell me is that for years you guys have been passing your opinion off as fact, and have tried to shut down anyone and everyone who questioned you.   And for years you guys haven't had the slightest idea what you were talking about.    In other words, I know better than to take your word for it.    If others are fine with you dictating your skewed Merion story that is up to them.  But I won't accept it without facts. 

Plus Tom you have done much more that just tell us what you think happened at Merion.  You have used and abused your access to these documents to try and tear down my essay and make a fool of me.   And you continue to try.     You aren't neutrally disseminating information you are are selectively using it to attack.   Your duplicitous use of the information defies common sense and any reasonable standard of discourse.

That you think I don't even have the right to defend my work or myself shows how completely out of touch with the world you are.   

You think your connections give you some special status that you need not even use the most common of courtesy and that your words are unchallengeable but it doesnt work that way in a public forum.   I don't give a shit who attacks my  work or what clubs they may happen to be connected to, I will defend myself and my work from false and baseless claims.    And I will demand that they put up or shut up.  You long ago had your chance to shut up and you could not, so it is time to put up.  Lets have the proof. 

[TEPaul]

"As to why I am the only one making these demands, can you think of anyone else (other than MacWood) who you have constantly attacked for over a year based on mysterious source material that only you were allowed to see?  I can't."




No, frankly, I can't either. I do admit I think the two of you are the only ones to do this kind of thing the way you have on here and I do admit it has been really frustrating and pretty maddening to me from time to time and I guess I sure have lashed out, maybe too much for sure. I can't think of another person on this website or anywhere else who has ever come remotely close to the two of you that way but in my opinion you are worse than he ever was by, oh I don't know, it's hard to estimate, but maybe by a factor of ten or even twenty, and you are far worse in a way that he never really was, in my opinion.

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom Paul,

My grandfather was a dairy farmer. In the summer months I worked on his farm. After chores we would eat hugely and take a nap - he actually had a bed in his "T.V. Room".

Well he would wake up after an hour or so and light up a Bel-Aire and then proceed to tell me stories from his days as a boy, and this was all back in the time that we recognize on here as the golden age. That might be why I am drawn to these times.

I am sure my grandfather embellished more than a bit, but boy he told some great stories. Those were some great times back in those days. Probably because they weren't as pluralistic as we are now and that made life more innocent and plain. I may be delusional, but I do feel like I understand those times because of those glorious summers on my grandfather's farm.

.....when I told him that I was going to be a greenkeeper, he said: "oh, so you're going to be a farmer in the city".

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom Paul,

I have to say that I think those guys back then knew a lot more than what we give them credit for.

A couple weeks ago I was out on Detroit Golf Club in a driving rain with Clem Wolfrom, who incidentally might be the oldest greenkeeper in America today, and still going strong.

Every drop of water that falls on that golf course is drained off by an underground tile system that Donald Ross designed. That system is still functioning today. It is a remarkable feat of engineering, that is every bit as sophisticated as any of our state of the art irrigation systems.

[TEPaul]

"Also Tom,  the reason that I do not accept what you tell me is that for years you guys have been passing your opinion off as fact, and have tried to shut down anyone and everyone who questioned you.   And for years you guys haven't had the slightest idea what you were talking about.    In other words, I know better than to take your word for it.    If others are fine with you dictating your skewed Merion story that is up to them.  But I won't accept it without facts."


I understand all that too; it is no mystery to me, particularly as you've said it so many times before. Maybe you think we haven't had the slightest idea what we are talking about but we feel you're close to a minority of one that way or else pretty inconsequential, and to what I think are a whole lot of people, unfortunately your essay was one of the greatest contributors to that; at least amongst the people on here and elsewhere we really value the opinions of. Most of the problem we seem to have with you is you seem to take the negative reactions to that essay personally. I don't think you should because we don't even know you and we may never know you but we sure can and do read what you said in that essay and long after on this website. That's sort of the way we hear it and feel about it. If there are some others out there like on this new phenomenon "Max's Lounge" from Dark Net or whatever the hell that is called or is, who want to sit around on the INTERNET in something they call a "salon" or whatever and want to get their "other-side-of-the-fence" viewing rocks and frustrations off on all kinds of people including us, you have to understand that doesn't really concern us or it sure doesn't concern me.

It probably would concern me and surely interest me, if sociology was my interest, which in some ways it is, but golf and architecture and its history is a bit more primary to me, at least on this website.

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom Paul,

One other thing I just thought of: I think the main thing that those guys would be surprised by is how much energy we waste on communication.

I have copies of the actual budget reports and the progress reports that were written by Bob Williams when he was at Beverly in 1956. They are remarkably informative and cogent, and yet so simple compared to the way we communicate now.

[TEPaul]

Bradley:

God that post #232 is good (haven't read #233 yet). Thanks so much for the sort of personal take and emotion sensibility. Can you elaborate a bit on what-all you mean by pluralistic? Then I'd really like to get into it somemore. This kind of stuff is what makes this site as good as it can get and some of its contributors as good as they can be on here. I'm not that much into things like the pros and cons of rankings and ratings. To me this kind of thing is more personal and way more interesting and edifying. Bradley, you and I come from or are sort of out of worlds that are probably light years apart, but just look at us now!

Would you like to be the great, great grandson of one of the biggest trust-creating financiers in American history? Would I like to be the great, great grandson of a "get up early, love the sun and earth" real American farmer who told great stories after a necessary nap and smoke? We should talk about it. I don't even mind doing it on here but you might. Maybe it's cathartic for people like us. At this point, if I have something to hide, I don't think I know what it is. 

[DMoriarty]

Bradley,

I know you like to pop in occassionally with the they had it right all along argument, and I hate to burst your bubble, but this thread has been about whether or not to take one of those on Wilson's committee at his word.   TomPaul and Mike refuse to take him at his word.  In fact, I am the only one standing who is willing to take all of the parties who were actually there at their words.   

"Also Tom,  the reason that I do not accept what you tell me is that for years you guys have been passing your opinion off as fact, and have tried to shut down anyone and everyone who questioned you.   And for years you guys haven't had the slightest idea what you were talking about.    In other words, I know better than to take your word for it.    If others are fine with you dictating your skewed Merion story that is up to them.  But I won't accept it without facts."


I understand all that too; it is no mystery to me, particularly as you've said it so many times before. Maybe you think we haven't had the slightest idea what we are talking about but we feel you're close to a minority of one that way or else pretty inconsequential . . .

Again Tom, you really ought not to mistake the silence of others with agreement or approval.

Plus Tom, this isnt a popularity contest, it is about what really happened.  And unlike most or all of your supposed fans, I know what you guys knew and didn't.   I did the research and found the documents.   I know what I explained to Wayne.  I know what I gave him.  I know when and where you have been entirely wrong, and where you've been half-wrong, and where you didn't even know enough to be right or wrong.    

And Tom, you and I both know that I have ample reason to NOT take your word for it.

Plus Tom, asking someone to take your word for it has no place in a conversation like this.  You guys came at me and continue to do so.  So quit acting like a coward and back up your claims.

[TEPaul]

"The reason I have made demands of those who have ceaselessly attacked my essay, my intelligence, and my character for the past year or more, yet have refused to back up their attacks with the facts they claim exist.  That isn't Merion or MCC.  That'd be Wayne, you, and Mike Cirba.   And while you may be friend of Merion, and Wayne is a member, my demands are only of those of you who have talked the talk for a year, but have thus far refused to walk the walk."



That fact is---and this is a fact, you can say something like that on an INTERNET website, but you have no idea at all what is or isn't MCC or Merion. You know no one there and you never have so how could you possibly know what is or isn't MCC or Merion and what those places and memberships think of either you or me or Wayne? But we here do and the reasons are obvious. You can say you do or you can think you do, but the fact is you just don't. How could you?  Wayne belongs to Merion G.C., they took him in, and he knows enough members now after a couple of years. And what he's done for their detailed architectural research you have no idea! I've been here for over thirty years and I probably know 200-300 people at those two places over those years and they know me. You're probably a pretty smart guy, you do the math, and the commonsense of it; I don't see why I should have to try to explain it to you day after day after day.

[DMoriarty]

"The reason I have made demands of those who have ceaselessly attacked my essay, my intelligence, and my character for the past year or more, yet have refused to back up their attacks with the facts they claim exist.  That isn't Merion or MCC.  That'd be Wayne, you, and Mike Cirba.   And while you may be friend of Merion, and Wayne is a member, my demands are only of those of you who have talked the talk for a year, but have thus far refused to walk the walk."



That fact is---and this is a fact, you can say something like that on an INTERNET website, but you have no idea at all what is or isn't MCC or Merion. You know noone there and you never have so how could you possibly know what is or isn't MCC or Merion and what those places and memberships think of either you or me or Wayne? But we here do and the reason is obvious. You can say you do or you can think you do, but the fact is you just don't. How could you?  Wayne belongs to Merion G.C. and he knows enough members now. I've been here for over thirty years and I probably know 200-300 people at those two places over those years and they know me. You're probably a pretty smart guy, you do the math, and the commonsense of it; I don't see why I should have to explain it to you day after day after day.

Make up your mind Tom.  Are you speaking for Merion or not?   You seem to go back an forth depending on whether it suits you.   

From my perspective it makes no difference.   Whoever you two are speaking for, you need to back up your claims and attacks.  I made that clear from the first day this started.    And if Merion is behind it or even if Mr. Capers came on here and started calling me names and claiming my essay was crap, I'd demand the same thing of him.   I hope and assume Merion the institution is classier than that, even though the two of you two are not.   

[TEPaul]

Tom Paul,
I have to say that I think those guys back then knew a lot more than what we give them credit for."



Bradley:

I couldn't agree with you more. And that's why I think we need to look at some of them so much differently than some on here are or tend to do. In other words, I just think it is the total height of ignorance and arrogance for some couple of guys on here who try to crack themselves up as researchers and historians on architecture to write off the likes of Hugh I. Wilson and his committee of four members as just a bunch of novices who could never have done what everyone knows they did do without being completely given a total plan first. Those two don't understand history or architecture, in my opinion. I guess they think it's some kind of rocket science or something. But can you blame them? All they do is read stuff and try to find some mistake someone once made in a history book and neither one of them has ever taken the time or had enough interest or initiative to get out there in the field and learn the ropes and the nitty gritty, itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny stuff that goes on out there that nobody ever records that is generally the essence of it all and how one really learns it!

[DMoriarty]

I couldn't agree with you more. And that's why I think we need to look at some of them so much differently than some on here are or tend to do. In other words, I just think it is the total height of ignorance and arrogance for some couple of guys on here who try to crack themselves up as researchers and historians on architecture to write off the likes of Hugh I. Wilson and his committee of four members as just a bunch of novices who could never have done what everyone knows they did do without being completely given a total plan first. Those two don't understand history or architecture, in my opinion. I guess they think it's some kind of rocket science or something. But can you blame them? All they do is read stuff and try to find some mistake someone once made in a history book and neither one of them has ever taken the time or had enough interest or initiative to get out there in the field and learn the ropes and the nitty gritty, itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny stuff that goes on out there that nobody ever records that is generally the essence of it all and how one really learns it!

Tom you have no idea whether I "get out there in the field" or what I do and don't know about what goes on out there.   This is just more garbage you throw out there to avoid discussing the facts. 

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom Paul,

Pluralism is the motto of the herd. Now the herd may all get along with one another in public, but there is a dire personal cost that comes from not believing in anything so that you can get along with everyone. Hell, "everyone" doesn't matter that much, do they?

The problem is when you stop believing in anything, so that you can be a good virtuous pluralist, you loose your soul.

The best palliative that I know of for a Catholic who may not know if he is is pluralistic is to read Belloc's "Path To Rome" or Chesterton's "Orthodoxy".

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom Paul,
I have to say that I think those guys back then knew a lot more than what we give them credit for."



Bradley:

I couldn't agree with you more. And that's why I think we need to look at some of them so much differently than some on here are or tend to do. In other words, I just think it is the total height of ignorance and arrogance for some couple of guys on here who try to crack themselves up as researchers and historians on architecture to write off the likes of Hugh I. Wilson and his committee of four members as just a bunch of novices who could never have done what everyone knows they did do without being completely given a total plan first. Those two don't understand history or architecture, in my opinion. I guess they think it's some kind of rocket science or something. But can you blame them? All they do is read stuff and try to find some mistake someone once made in a history book and neither one of them has ever taken the time or had enough interest or initiative to get out there in the field and learn the ropes and the nitty gritty, itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny stuff that goes on out there that nobody ever records that is generally the essence of it all and how one really learns it!

You mean the kind of research that didn't even exist before internet search engines?

[TEPaul]

"Bradley,
I know you like to pop in occassionally with the they had it right all along argument, and I hate to burst your bubble, but this thread has been about whether or not to take one of those on Wilson's committee at his word.   TomPaul and Mike refuse to take him at his word.  In fact, I am the only one standing who is willing to take all of the parties who were actually there at their words."


Bradley:

It's not that we aren't taking Francis at his word. We just aren't taking what Moriarty contends happened because of Moriarty's agenda-driven, preconceived-scenaro and INTERPRETATION of what a single remark in a longer story from Francis really means so he can fit the poor man's single ambiguous remark into his preconceived incredibly fallacious contentions about Wilson, Macdonald and Merion.

The FACTS surrounding what Francis did but said seemingly ambiguously thirty nine years later are what we are looking at and analyzing.  Moriarty never had any of those surrounding FACTS before he wrote that ridiculuous agenda-driven essay, and so he is just trying to keep this whole discussion and argument very small and narrow (to that single ambiguous remark in Francis's much larger and more explanatory story. He should have asked us but he didn't. That's his problem, that's why he got criticized and panned around here from all those who have always known more of the facts and details of Merion's history and architecture, and now he's trying to blame us for it. This is the sign of a combined insecure and overly egocentric man.

But I think tonight is a very interesting juxtaposition on this thread, Bradley, with your good and thoughtful posts and his increasingly hystrionic and pathetically egocentric and insecure ones. "Oh my, oh my, everything that has happened to me is everyone elses's fault but my own."

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom Paul,

It is raining like hell in Detroit, and I have to get up in a few hours.

Good night.

And to David I would say that I finished reading "Unmasking The Real Shakespeare". Now you have to read any book by C.S. Lewis. 

[TEPaul]

"You mean the kind of research that didn't even exist before internet search engines?"


Bradley:

Hmmmm. Very interesting indeed. Let me think about that a while, particularly if you really do just mean internet RESEARCH. But if you mean the annoyance to some club like Merrion and its members and friends from someone like David Moriarty, I would say the potential annoyance of the INTERNET today compared to before it existed has probably been magnified like something between a 100,000 and a million TIMES!
 
 

[DMoriarty]

"Bradley,
I know you like to pop in occassionally with the they had it right all along argument, and I hate to burst your bubble, but this thread has been about whether or not to take one of those on Wilson's committee at his word.   TomPaul and Mike refuse to take him at his word.  In fact, I am the only one standing who is willing to take all of the parties who were actually there at their words."


Bradley:

It's not that we aren't taking Francis at his word. We just aren't taking what Moriarty contends happened because of Moriarty's agenda-driven, preconceived-scenaro and INTERPRETATION of what a single remark in a longer story from Francis really means so he can fit the poor man's single ambiguous remark into his preconceived incredibly fallacious contentions about Wilson, Macdonald and Merion.

The FACTS surrounding what Francis did but said seemingly ambiguously thirty nine years later are what we are looking at and analyzing.  Moriarty never had any of those surrounding FACTS before he wrote that ridiculuous agenda-driven essay, and so he is just trying to keep this whole discussion and argument very small and narrow (to that single ambiguous remark in Francis's much larger and more explanatory story. He should have asked us but he didn't. That's his problem, that's why he got criticized and panned around here from all those who have always known more of the facts and details of Merion's history and architecture, and now he's trying to blame us for it. This is the sign of a combined insecure and overly egocentric man.

But I think tonight is a very interesting juxtaposition on this thread, Bradley, with your good and thoughtful posts and his increasingly hystrionic and pathetically egocentric and insecure ones. "Oh my, oh my, everything that has happened to me is everyone elses's fault but my own."

"The land now covered by fine homes along Golf House Road was exchanged for land about 130 yards wide by 190 yards long - the present location of the 15th green and the 16th tee."

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,
It is raining like hell in Detroit, and I have to get up in a few hours and tell everyone they can not use carts."


Well, you just go do all of that, then take a nap, have a butt and come back and tell me some cool and memorable story! I've got to go to bed too. It's 1:58am in the morning in Philadelpia, and that's late and I'm high on Diet Cokes and tomorrow around 5:30 am I'll get up, race the tractor down about a two mile run of dangerous country road before the sun rises, do an hour and a half mowing on my step-daughter's field, race it back with even more dangerous traffic, take a nap, have a butt, and be ready!

[TEPaul]

"The land now covered by fine homes along Golf House Road was exchanged for land about 130 yards wide by 190 yards long - the present location of the 15th green and the 16th tee."




Yep, really definitive statement that one is that you've used to support the entire logic in your essay that Wilson was a novice, Francis was out there doing a routing months before he was even appointed to Wilson's committee to some phantom Macdonald or Barker routing and doing a land swap idea at least five weeks before the land was EVEN PURCHASED by Lloyd that a board member on 4/19/11 offered a resolution to approve the Francis land swap that said the land was ALREADY PURCHASED which we can prove happened on Dec. 19, 1910 and not BEFORE.

You can't really address THOSE FACTS, can you? And something tells me clear as a bell you will totally avoid them and not even try. Why would you? You know just as well as we do that would completely DESTROY the whole stucture of the ultimate contention of your fallacious essay! 

What's that going to tell the people who read this website and this particular subject? What is that going to say about you? 

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

Tom Paul, Wayne (who thank God had enough sense to just move on from this nonsense) and I are not some monolithic force.   Hell, I don't think they agree with me half the time and I have my own disagreements with them on some matters.

I've tried to back away from this discussion many, many times, and I've recommended you do the same....in fact many times I told you that I think you're at a significant disadvantage here because some of us have seen the minutes and you haven't and thought that was unfair and pointless and ultimately would be futile for you because those minutes prove that Hugh Wilson and the Committee created a bunch of routings in 1911 and one of them was ultimately recommended, approved, and built.

It's not that Macdonald and Whigham didn't contribute great advice and help consultatively...they just didn't create the routing or design the holes.

But David...I have to tell you....you're absolutely infuriating to discuss things with.

On this thread I have probably asked somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 direct questions, and they were sincere, rational questions based on the evidence as I see it.

You didn't attempt to answer a single one of them, and dismissed every fact I brought to bear with unhelpful, dismissive comments like "it doesn't mean what you think it means".

Frankly, you reject out of hand discussion about anything that doesn't fit into the narrow theory box you've put yourself into and try desperately to change the subject, or worse yet, piously protest that we are simply protecting a local myth rather than face the hard facts that your essay's main premise is in dire straits.

You also claim others are insulting to you and your ideas, but you are equally guilty and then some...you just wrap yourself in the cloak of victim while throwing grenades.

Tonight, Tom Paul showed how the Francis Land Swap could not have happened before November 15th, 1910.  

Rather than acknowledge that fact, and try to learn the real history as you claim you want to, you once again go on a passive/aggressive rant about how everyone is against you and how we are just making stuff up, or cherry picking facts, or whatever.

You've painted yourself into such a corner that you can't accept any truth that doesn't agree with your premise.    In some cases, we have probably done the same.

But, this is once again going nowhere fast and a thread I started to try to respectfully and civilly discuss your theory and propose an alternative and lay out the timelines I as I understand them has degenerated once again.  

This is not a court case where acknowledging any valid point made by the opposition or truthfully answering any direct question somehow makes your case weaker.   Yet, that seems to be the way you've approached this entire matter David, and it's no coincidence to me that once again the discussion has hit a wall.

Thankfully, I do think enough evidence has been brought to bear here where we can all move on and accept that we all did learn some new things and Macdonald did have a larger role in some areas, but that Hugh Wilson and Committee actually did do the routing and hole designs, but somehow I sense that may never happen....

That's too bad.

[TEPaul]

"This is just more garbage you throw out there to avoid discussing the facts."



The REAL facts on the Francis land swap story are contained in post #215 and your are not going to even touch ONE of THOSE FACTS! How can you because you know if you even try to honestly your whole essay will go up in smoke with everyone who reads this subject. And I am going to remind you and the rest of the people who read this subject or THAT every single day!    

Maybe you think you can pull this kind of shit with your specious arguing with about half the flunkies in some some freshman law class in some community college but you're not going to get away with that crap with some of us here on the architectural history of Merion East, that's for sure.  

[TEPaul]

Mike:

Let's just do this from now on:

Ask him how he can refute the meaning of:

1. That Thompson offered a resolution to approve the Francis swap that said the land was "ALREADY PURCHASED"

2. We have Lloyd's purchase deed of Dec. 19, 1910 and we can make it available (anyone can find it at the County Recorder of Deeds).


HOW in the world can anyone get around that if they are trying to maintain that land swap happened BEFORE Nov, 15, 1910???


Why don't we just make him face up to those points and not let him constantly avoid them as he has every other important fact that bears directly on this issue? There is certainly nothing remotely ambiguous about the meaning of the resolution and date of Lloyd's deed. 

Francis's remark about the dimensions of that triangle isn't a FACT, it's just an ambiguously worded explanation of what the final result of that triangle was. Understanding the above is essential to understanding what Francis meant. I don't know how old Francis was when he said that in 1950 but he certainly wasn't accurate about the base of the triangle being 130 yards wide at that time. But it had been 130 from 1911 to 1928.

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