Last week, my husband decided to make use of an AI program he's found useful to give me some hints as to how I can come up with more information on Sam "Chief" Johnson and incorporate them into a compelling biography/history. (For those who haven't been following my quixotic quest before now, "Chief" was a half-white, half-Cherokee jockey who was well known on the western racing circuit of a century or so ago as much for his mental agility, cocky attitude, and quick retorts as for his riding skills; he came to my attention when I was researching the work that became Dream Derby: The Myth and Legend of Black Gold because he was the exercise rider who broke the legendary Kentucky Derby winner Black Gold to the saddle.) The AI came back with a couple of solid tips for further research, but the part I found both hilarious and frustrating was that most of the information sources cited came back to one person: me.
Now, I have some degree of knowledge about various things related to Thoroughbred pedigrees and racing history. I've written hundreds of magazine articles on these topics as well as six books. I've even been cited by other authors and researchers as an authoritative source from time to time, which I suppose qualifies me as an expert of sorts. But if I am the reigning expert on one Sam "Chief" Johnson, then I may well fit the definition of an expert often attributed to Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler: someone who knows more and more about less and less until he [she] knows everything about nothing.
"Chief" Johnson is hardly nothing, of course: he was a living, breathing human being who made himself memorable on sheer force of personality. And the research I'm doing is being done precisely because I don't know everything there is to know about him, short of those parts of any man's soul that are known only to God. There is a real sense in which knowing this one relatively obscure man becomes knowledge of the times he lived in and the lives of many others like him, who lived on the ragged edges of society and pursued a risky profession in a world that had very few safety nets. That's the world and the man I hope to bring to life. Nevertheless, this seems to be one area in which I am truly blazing a trail, or at least trying to. And I guess that makes me the expert, whether I feel I merit the title or not.
Now, I have some degree of knowledge about various things related to Thoroughbred pedigrees and racing history. I've written hundreds of magazine articles on these topics as well as six books. I've even been cited by other authors and researchers as an authoritative source from time to time, which I suppose qualifies me as an expert of sorts. But if I am the reigning expert on one Sam "Chief" Johnson, then I may well fit the definition of an expert often attributed to Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler: someone who knows more and more about less and less until he [she] knows everything about nothing.
"Chief" Johnson is hardly nothing, of course: he was a living, breathing human being who made himself memorable on sheer force of personality. And the research I'm doing is being done precisely because I don't know everything there is to know about him, short of those parts of any man's soul that are known only to God. There is a real sense in which knowing this one relatively obscure man becomes knowledge of the times he lived in and the lives of many others like him, who lived on the ragged edges of society and pursued a risky profession in a world that had very few safety nets. That's the world and the man I hope to bring to life. Nevertheless, this seems to be one area in which I am truly blazing a trail, or at least trying to. And I guess that makes me the expert, whether I feel I merit the title or not.