WHY I DID THIS

Contrary to what one may believe from going through this website, I have not always had a love for history.  In fact if any of my history teachers knew that I had taken on this project, they would be stunned into permanent insanity.  (As my son has reminded me on more than one occasion, there was so little history to study when I was a student that I had no excuse whatsoever!)

It wasn't until I became a broadcaster when I first began to be intrigued by the paths that many had taken through time.  At first, I became somewhat of a trivia buff.  At the time it was considered quite appropriate for disc jockeys to come up with entertaining trivia questions in order to give away various trinkets to adoring listeners.  One station where I had worked (KAKC; Tulsa, OK) had a morning man (Morning Mouth McCarthey) who had a daily presentation of Little-Less-Known-and-Little-Less-Cared-For-Facts.  This was the Genesis of my curiosity.

Of course this led to the eventual purchase of the popular game "Trivial Pursuit."  It was through this game where I really began learning about history and its importance to everyday life.

Although the game certainly had its share of errors (as in the case of many historical collections) it still fed my curiosity and developed a philosophy of learning that I wished I had possessed while I was still in school.

Among my lessons, I learned that history truly is a living thing.  It began the second I was born and will continue long after I've gone.  History is simply a collection of footprints left by countless individuals as they walked over the sands of life's many beaches.  Some footprints are larger than others and some are much clearer; but all footprints move in the same direction: from start to finish. 

Some footprints have been declared more important than others, but that's where I tend to take issue with many educators.  Yes, I see the importance of events like the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the attack on Pearl Harbor and Columbus' famous trips.  But what I believe are important are the more mundane events of time; the invention of the beer pump handle, the first soda jerk, the day color television first became available and so forth.  The events covered in text books are truly important, but it is the trivial that truly make us who we have become. 

It is my sincerest wish that people who stumble across this site will bookmark it and refer to it often.  It is interesting to see what happened on our various red-letter days, and to see who shares the same birthdays.  Sometimes it is not enough to know the how and why, but it is occasionally important to also know the when.

This is but one of my footprints.

W.B. Ward