As a 10-year-old sixth grader at Lansingburgh Elementary School, my attention was focused on family and friends with school being a necessary evil. Although attentive in class, I never did homework. I passed the tests anyway, so saw no need to bother. Homework repulsed me. Homework took me away from my friends. That is until Ms. Kathleen Tivnan (my history teacher) convinced me, that at least for her class, it was worth doing. When I failed to turn in an assignment, she kept me after school. “Write ‘I will do my homework’ 100 times” she would say in her ever eloquent manner. I caved after about a week of this and started to do her homework assignments.
Many of the reading assignments were on ancient Greece. Before long, the stories of the city-states and the gods they honored became enjoyable for me to read. I wasn’t only reading what she told me to, I was checking other history books out as well. The more I read, the more interested I became in current events. I figured, someday these events will be history. Since my parents sheltered me from world events taking place in 1971, (the Vietnam War was still being waged and campus riots seemingly a daily occurrence) I turned to my grandparents. I asked them about events that occurred in their lifetimes like The Great Depression and World War II. What was history to me was life for them. How cool it was to learn their lives. The family historian was born.
Had it not been for Ms. Tivnan’s insistence, my love of history may never have been awakened. Ms. Tivnan woke the sleeping giant. To her I owe my passion for history: my family's and Troy’s in particular. It was this passion for history that made me rail during the Urban desTroyal that occurred here in the ‘70’s. I carry that same passion today. Historic preservation and restoration are necessary, vital. They are keystones. For it is in our history that the real citizens of Troy will find their future.
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