Historical service

Not long after moving into my new town, I felt the need to give back to the community as a way of getting to know it better.  While in this context, I happened upon the website for the Harford County Historical Society and saw that they were in desperate need of volunteers.  I love history, and I thought this would be an enjoyable way to follow the prompting I had to give back to the community.

After meeting with the society director and one of her associates, an elderly gentleman named Walt, I was assigned an independent project based on my needs with my schedule (or rather the schedule that I presented).  That project aims to digitize the collection of oversize documents, Walt showed me his process for creating and naming the digital files, which, being an engineer, I quickly improved by developing a more efficient procedure.

Speaking of which, when Walt gave me my training for the project, he asked if I knew anything about computers.  I instantly thought, “Well, I’m an engineer, so I hope I know something.” But in that second before responding, a decision confronted me.  Would I respond with something smart?  Or would I pretend to be ignorant?  Or would I just pretend to be a hot shot know-it-all?  I settled for something more in the middle: “You could say I’m a little familiar.”

Now I go in once a week for a couple of hours to scan oversize documents.  The documents aren’t in any specific order, so I’ve gotten a glimpse of all sorts of things from the 18th century on.  For someone who loves history, this is a pretty posh job.

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Today, though, I got a special treat.  Several different projects are in the works at the same time, and one of those projects must involve historical objects, because I see different objects set out around the oversize file cabinet where the documents I am scanning are kept.  Today I saw an actual old-time telephone.  The telephones that I grew up with as a kid are already museum pieces, so to see something that was an actual museum piece when I was growing up was really cool.

Even cooler was being able to touch it.  It’s not often you get to touch a real piece of history like this, so I thought that was a special unanticipated treat.  Looking at the back side of the phone, I saw holes for screws, and instantly the engineer side of me wanted to take over.  I wanted to find a screwdriver and open the thing up!  I didn’t, of course, but it was awfully tempting.

Looking out the window from my seat by the scanner, I saw a fantastic view of the national and state flags waving outside.  The photo I snapped didn’t really capture the vibrancy of the flags waving motion, so I made a short video.  Overall, I feel very blessed to have this special gig.  It doesn’t offer a paycheck, but the pay it offers is well worth the time I exchange for it.  I’m glad I was able to find it!

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