Cortez writes “Dr. Sam Proctor, the dean of Florida history passed away July 10th. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/18/Floridian/Speak
In the old days, people wrote letters. They wrote letters about their carbuncles, their lumbago, their rickets. They wrote about the day lightning hit the oak, which crushed the Cracker cabin, thus prompting a move from Two Egg to Ocala, where granny was famous for her quilts before her death from malaria.
People wrote letters that explained the reality of surviving in Florida. Of course, many letters ended up in the fireplace. But some were tied with ribbon and tossed into a dresser drawer. Years later, somebody would push aside the mothballs and read the letters. With luck, the letters fell into the hands of a historian.
Fewer people write letters now. If they write at all, they write e-mail. Sooner or later, e-mail clogs up the computer and the computer owner has to delete the e-mail. Historians hate e-mail.
Like most historians, Proctor valued finding an old letter. Even better was finding someone, still breathing, who had something relevant to say about life in Florida. Reading an obituary, he would lament that no historian had ever asked that person a question for the record.””
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