Unearthing the Archives
by Steve Simmons
Our members may not know that somewhere deep in a secure vault, protected by double locking doors and armed guards, there exists a pile of boxes containing hundreds of early TC Motoring Guild historical documents. Those documents have been entrusted to several people over the years. I am the 7th in that line, preceded by Bill Harps, Ivan Galanoy, Earl Sargent, Catherine Sargent, Harvey Schnaer and Don McLish. After so many years and so many garages, closets and attics (did I say secure vault?) it’s only natural that things fall into a bit of disarray. And that’s exactly how I found them. Let me explain…
Don’s wall of wonder.
After the passing of Mr. McLish I volunteered to be the temporary club Historian (yes I know what “temporary volunteer” means around here), so I went to retrieve the archives from his estate. I was told there were three large boxes with TCMG labels on them. There they were, sitting on a counter in his garage, surrounded on all sides by a massive display of electronic testing equiment. The man was either a genius or a mad scientist, or perhaps a bit of both. A look around convinced me that further digging was in order, because the garage was absolutely packed from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, except for the hole he left for one of his TCs. If there was another box in there, I didn’t want to leave it behind. On the tips of my toes, peering over the piles of cardboard and other unidentifiable items, I spotted another box with a TCMG label.
Up I went, using a foot stool to prop myself high enough to wiggle onto and across the top of the pile on my stomach. I found a solid place to land, grabbed the box and passed it behind me to the waiting hands of my very patient and understanding wife. “Got it!” had barely come out of my mouth before I noticed the box behind that one. Out it came.
A mountain of hidden treasures and dead mice.
Deeper and deeper into the pile I went until I had unearthed about a dozen of them, along with piles of dust and a couple of mice that were well past their expiration date. Like some doomed explorers deep in the Amazon jungle, they probably got lost and couldn’t find their way out.
An hour later, covered head to toe in dust and sweat, I emerged from the garage victorious. The car was loaded and the goods transported to their new home. A couple return trips were made when more items were found, adding to my own new garage pile which was now just like Don’s only smaller.
The contents of the boxes were no different. Order had been long since abandoned in favor of convenience. Important, long-forgotten history was mixed in with Moss Motors advertisements and MG socks. It took days to go through it all, transferring everything from old cardboard boxes to new plastic bins before a thorough review and sorting.
Several years ago, Don McLish started sorting and filing what he could but the project was immense and did not progress very far. I was feeling his pain but pressed onward until I completed a basic sorting and inventory. Then with help from our own professional archivist, Rob Zucca, further organization and preservation was undertaken. As it stands today, the archives are once again respectable and well organized, and efforts are being made to digitize and research much of the very early items.
The road ahead is long but it’s a fascinating one, stories of which I will share in future articles.