History, Gotta Love It !

A discussion I was in on Facebook today reminded me of when I was in graduate school attempting to earn a second degree, this one in history. I had finished all of te classes when all I needed to do was write a paper on a topic provided to me, and defend it before a panel of professors. (kinda like a doctorate but not quite that amount of work ) anyway I got sick, lost my first leg and never went back. Anyway we took a trip to the University of Illinois-Chicago Library for a tour. The class was taken into a temp. controlled room and you couldn't take anything with you. They had pencils and paper in the room to take notes if you wanted, but mostly we were there to SEE a small part of their collection. The only thing you couldnt actually pick up and look at was a book from te 1300's. It was called a book of hours. It was something a woman had carried to say her prayers. It was hand written and the pictures were painted with real gems and gold. Oh and the only other untouchable was one of Galileo's books which had his handwritten notes in the margins. Other that that you could pick stuff up and look at it. There were letters written by Albert Einstein talking about the atomic bomb and various presidents and historical figures and old books and relics. One I found particularly interesting was a hand written letter from Abe Lincoln to Sen. Douglas spelling out some rules about the first debate which took place in Ottawa, where I lived at the time. It was just so neat to be able to hold something written by Lincoln or Einstein. They have books on their shelves from the 1400's and 1500's that students can check out for research. And if they have someting you need (documents, etc.) you can request to see them and they let you examine them in one of the controlled rooms. I would love to go to the National Archives and look at stuff, or the Library of Congress. Maybe I'm just a nerd, but this stuff facinates me. I have spent months at the Streatorland Historical Society looking at old photos and things researching my book. They have file cabinets full of old photos that I have looked through. I have also read every page of every Streator newspaper from 1910-1949, looking for articles about the fire dept. They were often scattered throughout the paper, and stuck in where there was room, so I have to pay attention while I'm reading. At one time Streator had three daily newspapers, so thats a lot of reading. But over time I have developed a system of reading to save time, for example I dont read the classifieds, or I know to pay attention more on certain page numbers because the papers have a pattern on where things are printed, but not always, so I have to pay attention. When I find something I  write down the page and column number for my index, author of the story if any and a brief synopsis of the story. I am also putting together a run log for the fire dept, but not every run made the paper, so I only write down what I see. It does give them a general idea of what the dept did back in those days, but not EVERY run is in there so they get what I get. My book will have stories from 1868-1964 in it. I basically tell stories of what things were like or how things happened. I guess you could qualify it as historical, but obviously I wasnt around in 1874 to see half of Main Street burn down, so I have to rely on the newspapers to find out what went on. I may add details like "the men fought desperately to save the Oriental Building" now do I know they were desperate ? Well if half the town is burning and you have very little hose and no ladders,would you be desperate ? LOL So thats why I state right in the title thaat these are STORIES from the history of the Streator Fire Dept. I guess technically it is historical fiction. It is all researched and indexed and the stories are all true, they did happen in the way that I have written, its just that I didnt witness the events myself,so I am retelling the stories as they happened. I know that  may be nitpicky, but that's the way I have been taught, and that's the way it will be. I'm sure someone will end up bitching about something, but that's the way it goes, I guess. I would just like people to read and enjoy the stories and maybe learn a little about Streator's past. If you don't like it, don't read it, just like anything else.