Well, that's true for me. And this update is only possible because several people--one an old friend, the others acquaintances who are familiar with the website--have selflessly given of themselves and solved several problems I thought I might not be able to fix. By myself, I no doubt would have been just as stuck today as I was on December 15.
You see, this website is completely dependent on the informed and intelligent readers who contact me and fill in the blanks on various legends, stories, and chapters in history I'm attempting to research and explore. Those contributions are priceless, and without them I couldn't maintain Forgotten Ohio. But recently I ran into several real-world problems: One with internet access, which is complicated but involved meeting a publishing deadline and also being able to keep regular work coming in on the site itself; and the other with my camera, my old one, which finally crapped out after four years and would take no more photographs whatsoever. I barely mentioned these difficulties on the last update, and a great number of people took the time to send me e-mails offering their immediate help, asking nothing in return.
And not just their help. Thanks to them, I now have safe and secure internet access that I can count on. And thanks to them, I now have some seriously great camera equipment--given to me free of charge, over my adamant protests.
To say that I'm honored doesn't even begin to express how touched, how humbled I am by what people have done for me. What can I even say? I've always tried to be a good and generous person, and I like to think I've succeeded. But some people are generous down to their core, willing to trust me with delicate information or valuable material, willing to give things away in order to help me--a stranger, essentially--in so many ways.
So, let me just take a quick moment to thank a few of these people. Some want to remain anonymous, and some I'm not sure about so I'm leaving off for the time being. But I can say...
Thank you to Dustin, for taking a chance on me and trusting me. I can honestly say, I don't know many people who would be so kind or so trusting. You helped me more than I can say.
Thank you to Tim, who helped with my 35mm camera problems. His generous gift was more than I ever expected to receive, and again, I will never forget it.
Finally, I must mention Beth Santore, who runs the magnificent creepy-cemetery website Grave Addiction. Not only is her site fantastic (and worth another look, if you haven't been there in a month or more), she herself has always been a selfless and generous human being who puts people before material objects--and that's a personal ethic I've always striven to achieve myself. I won't go into detail about what Beth did for me, but let me just say that it will change the way the site runs, and enable many more updates, much more quickly, and it also changed my life in a number of other ways. Beth...thank you. You are truly a one-of-a-kind person.
Did I mention how humbled I am to realize what great people there are in the world? Sure, it's kind of a shitty place from time to time, but there are people with real selflessness in their fundamental makeup, and they make it much, much better.
Now.
PS. Happy New Year!
I am listening to:
I am reading:
FICTION - Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami (and my god it's awesome)
The House Next Door, by Anne Rivers Siddon
Duma Key, by Stephen King
NONFICTION - The Age of Lincoln, by Vernon Burton
Heart. The same two songs, over and over again, and not by choice. "These dreeeams go on when I close my eeeyes..."
