What Is History

What is History? It's something I've been thinking about lately. Mostly as other people's definition have proved to be a pain in the ass.

It seems for most history means old, it means black & white images. For most it means before they were born. Why is this a problem for me? Well, when you are hired to write a book on Modern Akron finding images of Polskys, Oneils, Lou and Hy's, Mr. Bilbo's and so many places that are sadly gone, but not quite gone long enough to be thought of as history, are hard to come by.

Sure everyone of a certain age will wax nostalgically about the downtown Christmas windows of Polskys and Oneils, and who didn't have a beer at Mr. Bilbo's? But nope, pictures are harder to come by than you think.  So I'm just saying, if you know somebody who has some.......

Thankfully Luigi's, The Civic, Swenson's, Skyway and the Peanut Shoppe are still there and hopefully willing to contribute some photographs.