YMCA, professional or amateur?

 Man, the Y is having trouble keeping historians of any proclivity.  Ever since Jack and Lulie Melton left (unclear how they'd respond to their dismissal as amateurs), it just been one short-termer after another.

I remember when Carie did a presentation at the Baldpate, and brought along a photograph which she attempted to pass off as the first organized meeting of the YMCA in Estes Park, from the group that supposedly left Grand Lake because of the mosquitoes (another wives' tale).  I looked at the photograph and saw folding chairs and tables, and raised the skeptical and very facetious question (not in public, but in private, afterwards), "Wow, for a group that hiked over from Grand Lake, this group came prepared."

Indeed, a cursory glance at the back of the photograph revealed the written description "Grand Lake, 1907", and whether or not this was accurate either (it could have been added 90 years later by another "amateur" historian), it clearly wasn't providing any support for an Estes Park location, which it wasn't, just by looking at the backdrop (and having some background in living here for an extended period of time, either professionally or voluntarily, and paying attention to the surroundings).

So farewell, professional historian, and good tidings.  You always seemed a bit out of place at the Y, away from your roots.  Now you are closer to home, and you can continue spreading the message (of something, I never could get you to let me see the Clatworthys in the upstairs closet, maybe because I didn't have the proper bona fides) to those who don't have a degree to back up their hobby.

I'm sure the Y will quickly find someone else (perhaps someone from the NFL) who has little interest in local history.  They're practically falling out of trees.