At this point, it seems that there may or may not have been a collector, who may or may not have "shredded" his collection?
Who cares.........
Not I....
I have a deep love of history, especially that of the Uintah Railway. I have collected data, photos, original documents, maps, photo copies of others work, printed books, phamhlets, post cards, you name it, if it is Uintah related, I would like to see it, study it, and well..... owne it.
I have devoted an inane amount of time to this project, and eventually got a couple of books published - simply because I had a huge collection of data and photographs and had made my self into an "expert" on the subject.
I can not for the life of me understand why someone would not want other people to keep and preserve the history that hey have spent countless hours preserving themselves?
I mean, its like spending years creating a beutifull painting, only to burn it before anyone else sees it?
Don't get me wrong, I have a deeply competitive nature, and would probably do anything short of actually mugging anyone of you, if there was a notebook of unpublished photos of the Uintah at the neihborhood yardsale, and by goodness if it shows up on Ebay, you better have your checkbook ready, because my pick up truck might be a pile-O-s_ _ _ but my "play around - wife no touch - auction account" is primed and ready.
There is an ever shrinking knowledge of the past, any researcher is mearly "floating upstream" to try and retain and explore the past and keep it in our forethought for a little longer, then it invariatably fades away.
If this phantom researcher had in his possession a (for arguments sake) Uintah photo, and now it shredded - we'll - who cares. I mean I hope that it never happens, but I'm sure there are more old photos tossed out after grandad'a funeral every year than what this one pittifull "researcher" has in his collection. and with out him sharing with the rest of us, with out him keeping history alive for a little longer, its as if the research never happenend in the first place. I would of coarse think this was even worse had I seen it, and it was indeed an "improtant" piece of history, but in the long run it means very little, except to a few (and dwindling) railfans.
What is trully sad, is that someone can become so isolated from humanity, that they begin to think that their life, and there research, is more important than the history.......
Long of after GT, or whoever, is gone and is nothing more that some letters in a granite headstone, the railroads history will still be there, its just to bad he does not want to help give it "life".
I have known several "hoarders" of both information and artifacts, and many of the older ones have this "take it to my grave" attitude, which I personally find putrid, but at the same time find quite amusing! Their children, their spouses, their religion, there home, their country, all fall a distant second to their coveted possessions, and some how that makes them feel important or powerfull. I for one, do not give them the satisfaction of thinking that there pittifull games are worth an eyebrow raise. If this guy is real, I hope that he has uncovered the holy grail of railroad research, has every name of every employee, every locomotive roster, every rare photograph of every rare branch line, hat pins, drinking glasses and a silver Otto mears pass, along with the GPS cordanites of twenty ex-USA Baldwins setting in a remote Gutamala jungle, and that he has forsaken God, Sex, and alcohol, for forty years only to shred it all one weekend in self pitty.....................
Rodger Polley
