I'm beginning to find that I love and hate the area we work in in the library. I love it because there are so many interesting things to look at. I hate it because THERE ARE SO MANY INTERESTING THINGS TO LOOK AT.
A couple weeks ago Beth and I wandered into the other wing that houses all the stuff from foreign writers. It was cool picking up a 400 page document and seeing it written all in German. There were also really really old manuscripts that did things like trace genealogy to John Adams. And it did so really well. Some of the documents use that crazy old spelling where an "s" looks like an "f" and they say "colour" instead of color. It's just fascinating how far language has actually come in the last few centuries.
I also ran into directories from my hometown. I honestly spent 20 minutes looking up where my dad lived when he was a kid. The directories are crazy. They list every person by the street they lived on followed by their address. When you find the name, they have the person's occupation listed right after and says how many people are in the family. There are old advertisements for businesses that went under when I was little. However, seeing them jogged my memory about the commercials they used to run on TV. Though it's not really related to my project at all, it's interesting seeing how something as simple as a cartoon character in a glorified phone book can bring up memories of stuff that happened when I was 5.
Finally, there are records and histories of every town and county in Indiana. I spent a bit more wasted time looking at the histories of Elkhart. Apparently, the Beardsley family bought the town from Chief Pierre Moran for 5 bucks.
Before you consider that a scam, remember, we have a decrepit strip mall and ghetto middle school named after the chief. So his memory will live on forever...or until the city decides to give up on those areas completely.
Moral of the story...go to the library with a purpose. Otherwise, it's just a waste of your time. Even if it's still really interesting.
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"Finally, there are records and histories of every town and county in Indiana. I spent a bit more wasted time looking at the histories of Elkhart. Apparently, the Beardsley family bought the town from Chief Pierre Moran for 5 bucks.
ReplyDeleteBefore you consider that a scam, remember, we have a decrepit strip mall and ghetto middle school named after the chief. So his memory will live on forever...or until the city decides to give up on those areas completely."
I know that there's a Beardsley street and maybe a Ford dealership with that name, as well as an elementary or middle school too.
I remember as a kid going to Pierre Moran "mall" for one of two purposes: to go to the first Target store in the area OR to eat at the 50s diner. :)