A little over a week ago, Luke Heffley, VP of the Pope County Historical Association, asked if I would be willing to give a presentation at their September meeting, scheduled for September 1 at Brangus Steakhouse.
They had been holding their meetings at the Check H Grill & Buffet and, after it burned, had to find somewhere else.
They held their August meeting at Central Christian Church on Independence Avenue.
I called Luke the next day and agreed to his proposal. We talked about ideas for what I might discuss.
I had a week to get ready for a 45-minute presentation.
I had spoken in public only twice before. Both were to the quorum court, and I was limited to just a couple of minutes.
Of course, I had been an instructor at the nuclear plant and had plenty of presentation experience.
I planned to cover a fairly wide range of topics, but I wanted to frame them around my use of AI and Wikipedia for research and writing, often on local history.
Pope County Courthouse in Dover in about 1870
A week sounds like plenty of time until you start digging.
I already knew most of the subjects I wanted to talk about. The problem was that every time I started checking something, I found another newspaper article, another source, another question to answer, and another rabbit hole to go down.
Dr. Thomas Russell rendered in a Norman Rockwell style
So I did what I normally do.
I kept digging.
1839 map
I overprepared.
I had a 16-page handout with large color images and, in large print, a 25-page speaker “outline.”
Jacob Lawson Shinn and his brick establishment
I ran out of time.
The material I contribute to Wikipedia has solid sources, but I ended up correcting a pretty significant sourcing error while prepping. I included that as part of the presentation.
I was pretty tired when I got done. It had been 3 months since my accident, when my back was badly injured. Luke assured me I could use a chair, but as a long-time instructor, I wasn’t comfortable doing that.
I crashed when I got home, first in my recliner and later on the couch.
