History Repeats Itself

Well, hello there! Tim here! You may remember me from last year. I was the student who spent the summer digitizing the S. S. Florizel files and locating as many of the final resting places of its victims as possible. A quick refresher about myself: I am a history student working on getting my Master's, I love researching and making educational and academic materials accessible, and the preservation of history for future generations is something that I am deeply passionate about.

My time here this year started exactly like last time: being handed a scanner and a very large stack of files to digitize. It is, however, a very different sensation this time around. I wrote a blog post last year (which you can read HERE) about how distant history can seem sometimes. It is very easy to forget that the numbers you are reading are not just statistics but actual human beings. I defined my experience of it as deeply sobering. You can imagine my surprise when I realized that my time here this year would be spent focusing on the cultural history of Mount Pearl and the people who made this city the beautiful place that it is to live in today. It's definitely a change in tone from last year, but I suspect it will be just as personally moving for me.

See, I grew up here in Mount Pearl, right across from Mount Pearl Senior High (Go Huskies!). As a child, I remember thinking about how the kids in St. John's must have had it so good, to live so close to the big and flashy things like the Avalon Mall with it's Starcade and Studio 12 (and later on that awesome glow-in-the-dark mini golf place!), and to be minutes from Downtown and all the theatre spaces. I envied such exciting places.

But now, as a young adult looking back on my childhood, I realize just how special Mount Pearl actually is. Most cities and towns are founded out of necessity, a need to expand or relocate. The City of Mount Pearl was built on a foundation of community. Reading stories about Mount Pearl's roots last year or seeing Mariana's work conducting interviews about the Frosty Festival reminds me of the beautiful social fabric woven right here. It inspires me to want to be more involved in the community here in the future. For the next five weeks, I will be getting involved in the community by helping to celebrate and preserve as much of this social history as possible. For now, that looks like scanning and digitizing files and photos, and sharing some highlights here with you all!

If you are interested in learning more about the social history of our community here in Mount Pearl, stay tuned! In the meantime, I would love to know a bit about what your own memories of the community here in Mount Pearl are. Feel free to leave a comment about your favourite group, event, or memory of Mount Pearl below and I will see you all next time!