Mary,

I was guilty of lurking on this subject, but feel I should add my three cents
for perspective. Unlike many of you, (it appears) I wasn't really driven to
preservation, unless surviving college from ' 67 on counts. I feel more like
preservation struck me at an intersection in my proffesional life.

Having realized early on that mechanical engineering was never going to lead
to true joy, I dabbled for a decade +/- in the exciting world of residential
ticky tacketry (home building). In 1982 my wife (and life guide) and I signed
up for a timber frame workshop. We went in without a clue and came out with a
new profession (and challenge). Serendipitously Two years later the first
annual conference of the Timber Framers Guild of North America was formed and
we became a part af a global village which represents the remnants of a once
great trade.

As with far too few of life's activities, the knowledge of the this trade was
not just there for the taking. To learn from our predicessors, we had to
"read" their work from the buildings they created, and the tools they used. As
time machines, their creations carried that knowledge from then to now. It was
up to use to understand it. Luckily crawling around in old barns is much more
fun than looking at miles of microfilm.

In 1993 Lois Bromfield's dairy barn at Malabar Farm State Park (OH) burned.
Following the fire the ODNR (in all it's wisdom) decided to use a bulldozer to
dismantle the charred structure, push it into a pit, douse it with fuel and
reignite it! They then set out to reconstruct it.

In the spring of 1994 we realized why twelve years earlier Laura had run
across that blurb (about the workshop) in Fine Homebuilding. The state's
agreement when they aquired the park was to preserve it as genuinely as
possible. The challenge to replace a building originally constructed by
tradesmen who were now extinct was what ODNR beleived they faced. Boy were we
in the right place at the right time. People from all over the state now come
to us for consultation (sorry Bryan) and education as to how to preserve their
barns, mills, bridges etc.

Our preservation resume now includes several "Henry Ford" style projects.
Having learned, from my protest days, that bulldozers (or the men who enable
them) are always right, we have saved a church originally built in 1815 in
Oxford, NY (or home), a barn built in 1895 in Curtis, OH (our office) a
springhouse/ general store from 1825 in Akron, OH several 19th century barns
(all for individuals) and returned three canal locks to working order. We're
just having too much fun. So?

Whodathunkit?

Rudy