A couple of things involving the interpretation of actual historical events have rattled my cage these last few weeks.

Listen, I know I’m a pain about this bugaboo of mine- it’s been remarked that I should just shut up and “enjoy the story,” whatever it may be, but I can’t: my researcher’s heart revolts- don’t claim it’s true if it’s not, dammit.

Starting with New Orleans- there are tons of ghost tours, many of which are based on actual historical events. Granted, these events have in many cases been so ramped up that they bear little resemblance to the facts, but there’s a generally nugget of truth under there. I did a whole series (and intend to keep going) of Hubpages on truth vs. reality on a couple of them, complete with an intro that says, “hey, I get why they get embellished, and I love a good ghost story too, but…spoilers ahead- didn’t happen. At least not like that.”

These stories took time to research. They took effort and diligence. I have a library of books, plus paid subscriptions to newspaper archives and classes attended.

In short, I take my shit seriously.

So when this email arrived, about this article, I was…uh…miffed:

From where was this history derived? We conduct tours of this cemetery and we repeated this info as historically correct and have had actual local historians tell us it is not true. Please respond. Thank you.

Wait. Waitwaitwait. I’m sorry? Perhaps I misunderstood. You’re making money off my work, and when questioned, chose to insult me and demand I do MORE work on YOUR behalf because you had no actual research of your own to fall back upon?

My return email was a detailed c.v. (“actual” historians, harumph!) and took up waaaaay too much time and emotional energy. Attempting to keep the tone formal and detached, it said that although I wasn’t going to dig up my actual info for her, she could start to do her own work using the following resources, blah blah blah. I said that given what I’ve made off that article I was positive that just one of her tour groups had made far more money off my research than I had, so feel free to go forth and do likewise.

Ultimately, my return email was stupid. Did I really think she would say, “Oh, jeez, you’re right! I have seen the error of my ways in that I focus on dressing up like Stevie Nicks and creating a vibe and instead should focus on the actual information I perform for credulous tourists!” No. Of course not. That’s not what she does. She provides entertainment, and as long as she’s not actually harming anything, I have nothing to say about it, other than that I’d prefer fact to fiction, but whatever.

Her return email focused on the money, of course, stating I was bitter because she was making more off research than I did. It quite deliberately misses the point, but then I guess we both did that, eh?

It also said she went to the library and did some research of her own, tyvm, so perhaps that’s a victory of a sort? My ego compels me to add that she did not also say she found anything contradicting my work. Ah hem. Plus, she’s providing info that most don’t have, so that’s a net gain for the world, too.

Ultimately, this has been a positive event. It’s reminded me how much I do love digging and finding and researching. It’s reminded me that the truth is often more interesting than the tale that gets spun around it. I need to get out my magnifying glass and archives and get back to work. Maybe they’ll ultimately get compiled someplace, or maybe they won’t, but the joy is in the hunt. As a side note, it also made me realize that Hubpages changed its formatting rules and I need to edit this and other pages, after having left them abandoned to fend for themselves for a few years.

And, in the end, there’s always the lesson the dead leave us with:

Tempis Fugit, baby. Time, it does fly, get back to what matters, because you have less time than you think to accomplish it in.

This symbol, found on the Dupaquir tomb in St. Louis No. 3 is one of my favorites- a winged hourglass with a wreath of poppies (symbolizing the sleep of death) and morning glories (the hope of reawakening) over a laurel wreath (the heroic struggle), darkened to show the detail as time wears away the stone.