WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:08.519 Hollo i' moalcan stories all the time. Glad you are here, 2 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:10.039 let's get into it. 3 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:14.240 I never found the old post office particularly charming. It's 4 00:00:14.279 --> 00:00:16.519 an odd thing to admit. After forty three years of 5 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:20.640 my life thirty two as Bluffford's appointed postal worker the 6 00:00:20.679 --> 00:00:24.800 rest as a regular, if headstrong recipient of bills and circulars, 7 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:28.519 the place always smelled of warming paper, dust and sun 8 00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:32.159 struck century old wood. Mornings like this one, with a 9 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:35.679 little autumn crispness seeping in under the wavy glass, the 10 00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:39.439 air grew just sharp enough to sting the nose. Only 11 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:43.520 through routine did the beauty start to appear. I was 12 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:46.600 there again on a Thursday in mid October, volunteering on 13 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:50.439 account of the election busy season. Old habits die slow. 14 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:54.200 It's mostly a matter of sorting tall white stacks, every 15 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:57.399 name and street in neat black print, the envelopes already 16 00:00:57.399 --> 00:01:01.439 anticipating family squabbles, and handwritten note for the absentee boxes. 17 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.959 Most of the new staff worked quick but loose, eager 18 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:08.920 to be done. But I lingered, reading cheap logos, chuckling 19 00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:13.519 at family jokes, inked into return addresses. You notice things 20 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:17.439 by the time You're seventy patterns, other people's odd methods, 21 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:21.280 the way order unfolds, and once in a while subtly 22 00:01:21.319 --> 00:01:25.640 tips sideways. That morning, something in the air felt sharper 23 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:29.120 than the usual hint of floor polish and fading stamps. 24 00:01:29.719 --> 00:01:33.079 Maybe it was the lack of Mabel's quiet humming. Maybe 25 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:35.359 it was just me. I picked up the top of 26 00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:38.680 a fresh bundle. Then my eye caught the headline blaring 27 00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:41.920 red and blue across the cover of the asterisk Bluffsford 28 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:47.920 Herald Asterisk A perfect record town predicts them all. That's 29 00:01:47.959 --> 00:01:51.480 not an unusual headline every autumn, as sure as pumpkin 30 00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:54.840 sales and the arrival of geese. Overhead, the Herald crafts 31 00:01:54.840 --> 00:01:59.319 a celebratory front page about Blufford's streak, a regional curiosity. 32 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:02.879 The article called it. The subheading added the flourish for 33 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:07.719 a century, Bluffford ballots have never missed presidents, governors, super Bowl, 34 00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:11.919 oscar night, even high school games. The claim was glossy 35 00:02:11.919 --> 00:02:15.560 and matter of fact. They'd printed it every few years 36 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:19.000 as long as I'd lived, with only minor updates. But 37 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:22.520 this time, standing under that honed patch of morning light, 38 00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:26.639 I paused to really read it. I'd always thought of 39 00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:30.080 it as one of those harmless exaggerations, like a fisherman's 40 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:32.800 tail about a mythical bass in the river, or rival 41 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:36.400 towns claims to best pie in the state. Yet with 42 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:39.240 the ballots soon to pile up again and these decades 43 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:43.680 of routine behind me, the assertion landed differently. Something prickled 44 00:02:44.039 --> 00:02:48.080 all of them, not just presidential races, but every big contest, 45 00:02:48.439 --> 00:02:52.120 each impossible call, every dark horse winner or head scratcher 46 00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:55.919 for a hundred years. The words didn't feel as familiar 47 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:00.039 as I'd thought, not when examined up close, even, and 48 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:03.560 the article's tone was off hand. Bluffsford makes its choice 49 00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:07.960 the second Saturday before each event, ballots sealed, then opened publicly, 50 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:11.759 never yet a miss, an unbroken chain longer than any 51 00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:16.039 streak in America. I pictured the regular photo, some mix 52 00:03:16.039 --> 00:03:20.039 of the mayor, a high schooler, an elderly volunteer, sometimes me, 53 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:23.560 standing in front of the town's worn white hall, holding 54 00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:28.280 up the latest envelope. Could it really be so precise? Surely? 55 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:31.879 I thought someone would have slipped guessed wrong, especially with 56 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:35.080 quirks like the two thousand election or the miracle on ice. 57 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:39.400 I'd sorted ballots. Through those years, I'd seen folks argue 58 00:03:39.479 --> 00:03:44.400 over rival teams, misread movie posters, stubbornly champion a losing cause. 59 00:03:44.919 --> 00:03:48.039 So why did we always collectively pick the winner no 60 00:03:48.199 --> 00:03:51.479 matter what? For the first time, I felt a real 61 00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:55.280 itch behind my old skepticism. It wasn't fear, just an 62 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:58.439 odd ball fascination, the sense of a puzzle hiding under 63 00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:02.039 layers of ordinary life. I looked at the headline again, 64 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:06.080 a perfect record, and filed it under questions worth, asking 65 00:04:06.479 --> 00:04:08.960 if it was just luck, then it was bizarre luck. 66 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:12.840 And if not luck, then what the sorting went on? 67 00:04:13.159 --> 00:04:16.680 Daylight shifting from gold to something more clinical. And I 68 00:04:16.759 --> 00:04:20.040 made a mental note this year, when the ballots come in, 69 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:23.959 I'm paying attention. Maybe it was finally time to look 70 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.439 twice at what we always take for granted. If you've 71 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:31.240 never heard of Bluffsford, you're forgiven. Most folks, even in 72 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:33.879 the next county over, know us only by our turn 73 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:36.639 off sign or, in recent years, a spot of local 74 00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:40.800 NPR coverage whenever our record gets dusted off for election season. 75 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:43.639 The town sits on a tight bend of the Willow River, 76 00:04:43.959 --> 00:04:47.839 flanked by crumbling bluffs, steep and forested copper brown in 77 00:04:47.879 --> 00:04:51.160 the fall. There's a single main street, some brick shop 78 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:54.120 fronts left from the nineteen tens, half a dozen side 79 00:04:54.199 --> 00:04:59.079 roads named for wood and wind Bluffsford isn't especially picturesque. 80 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:03.800 It trades more in comfort than grandeur. The population last 81 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:07.040 I checked hovers around twenty two hundred, though it's been 82 00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:11.199 ebbing quietly for as long as I remember. We're close knit, 83 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:15.720 but only in that particular Midwestern way. Helpful, sometimes nosy, 84 00:05:15.839 --> 00:05:19.319 rarely intrusive. New folks drift in and are greeted with 85 00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:22.040 a casserole or a handshake, then left to find their 86 00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:25.759 place at their own pace. The center of town physically, 87 00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:29.519 and I suppose emotionally is the old town Hall, its 88 00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:32.920 white painted wood, three stories if you count the bell tower, 89 00:05:33.199 --> 00:05:37.839 which rarely tolls except on officially sanctioned occasions. When I 90 00:05:37.959 --> 00:05:40.399 was in school, we used to run up those stairs 91 00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:44.040 on dares and leave our initials on the banisters. The 92 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:47.519 paint now peels in graceful curls, as if even the 93 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:51.879 building is reluctant to finish the job. I've grown familiar 94 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:55.120 with the rhythms over the years, both as postman and neighbor. 95 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:57.759 You start to tell, who leaves the porch light on 96 00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:01.079 for packages, who prefers letters that are arrive early, who 97 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:04.160 will tip their cap in greeting. There's Mabel at the 98 00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:07.680 post office, technically my boss in those days, but by 99 00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:11.360 now more a friend and local fixture. Mabel's a records 100 00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:14.160 keeper in the truest sense, having taken up the books 101 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:17.720 from the previous postmasters who took them up from theirs. 102 00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:21.240 She claims to have every page since nineteen sixty three, 103 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:25.879 and I believe her, every postal code, every annual report, 104 00:06:26.199 --> 00:06:30.040 each a model of legibility. Our neighbour Sam is a 105 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:34.480 different animal, an electrician by trade, contractor by temperament, and 106 00:06:34.680 --> 00:06:39.360 endlessly impatient with local traditions. He'll argue urban versus rural 107 00:06:39.399 --> 00:06:42.399 grid specifications into the ground, and, as he said more 108 00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:46.040 than once over beers, it's just luck and small town gossip. 109 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:50.839 No one cares outside county news. Sam loves poking holes 110 00:06:50.839 --> 00:06:55.319 in things, he says, it's his way of keeping us honest. Sometimes, 111 00:06:55.439 --> 00:06:58.560 after work or on cooler evenings, I cross the street 112 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:01.959 and say hello to missus Carr, a librarian for nearly 113 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:04.800 half a century. She's the keeper of what she calls 114 00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:09.959 Bluffsford's official unofficial stories. Her shelves have more clipped newspaper 115 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.319 columns and scrap book albums than any single patron could 116 00:07:13.319 --> 00:07:17.680 ever request, With nearly always exactly one page for each 117 00:07:17.800 --> 00:07:22.079 year's prediction, her place feels like a time capsule built 118 00:07:22.120 --> 00:07:26.480 by a gentle magpie, brimming with evidence of memory's stubbornness. 119 00:07:27.399 --> 00:07:30.439 The routines of pre election week bring all these strands together. 120 00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:35.240 Teenagers bring first time ballots, shepherded by parents or older siblings. 121 00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:40.560 The town council prints colored slips for each contest, presidential, gubernatorial, 122 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:45.079 The Super bowlcomb January, even the annual spelling bee. Cliff's 123 00:07:45.079 --> 00:07:48.240 Dinah down by the Bridge hosts the prediction pool. Locals 124 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:51.720 bet pie, coffee or bills on the outcome, mostly for fun, 125 00:07:52.040 --> 00:07:54.720 but with the serious air of picking horses at the derby. 126 00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:59.040 Everybody votes. The slips are gathered in the archive room 127 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:02.439 at the town Hall, joined in recent years by perfect 128 00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:06.079 prediction trophies from the Optimist Club, a nod to the 129 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:10.680 record politer than boasting. There's a mural in the school gym, 130 00:08:10.920 --> 00:08:14.480 begun in nineteen fifty seven and reprinted every decade, A 131 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:18.959 bright band of ballot winners, presidents, governors, athletes, even the 132 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:22.040 Olympic hockey team. I used to find it cheesy as 133 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:25.519 a boy. Now with age, I find myself tracing the 134 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:28.439 brush strokes, trying to spot where one year gives way 135 00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:32.559 to the next, the way stories blur across time. It's 136 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:36.159 all so mundane except for that single detail, a streak 137 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:40.240 that has become without pomp eternal. The records, the never missed, 138 00:08:40.440 --> 00:08:43.840 are saved, but rarely discussed. Out of towners ask about 139 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:47.000 the bluffs or Berry Festival, not the Prediction Pool. If 140 00:08:47.039 --> 00:08:50.320 any one calls it out, especially newer arrivals, it's brushed 141 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:53.399 off with a laugh. Oh, it's just a Bluffsford quirk. 142 00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:58.399 The pride is modest, almost shy. Once ask my own father. 143 00:08:58.759 --> 00:09:01.720 We have a family scrap book full of Prediction Day photos, 144 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:05.440 some black and white, others tipped with seventies polaried green. 145 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:08.720 Why people cared so much about the tradition, he said, 146 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.519 it keeps us together, that's all. It's fun. But even 147 00:09:12.559 --> 00:09:15.600 in those old photos, the one where I'm grinning holding 148 00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:18.240 up my ballot's slip with our neighbors on the summer porch, 149 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:21.480 there's an undercurrent of satisfaction, as if we're all in 150 00:09:21.559 --> 00:09:24.720 on something invisible, a small claim to certainty in a 151 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:28.840 surprising world. The contradiction gnaws the more you look for it. 152 00:09:29.240 --> 00:09:32.720 Why does everything feel so ordinary when sitting beside us? 153 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:36.720 Filed away witnessed as true? Is a record no other 154 00:09:36.799 --> 00:09:41.080 town shares. Come noon, I found myself loitering after the 155 00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:44.559 late shift at the post office, fiddling with an envelope cutter, 156 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:49.600 half ignoring the perfect record headline now propped against my coffee. 157 00:09:50.039 --> 00:09:53.840 The gnawing grew. The most obvious place to start was 158 00:09:53.879 --> 00:09:56.759 the archive room, housed in a drafty corner of the 159 00:09:56.799 --> 00:10:00.360 old town Hall. The air there always felt slightly cooler 160 00:10:00.399 --> 00:10:04.120 than outside, with a tight, musty taste like pressed linen. 161 00:10:04.679 --> 00:10:08.200 Stacked along the wall were battered, gray filing cabinets, each 162 00:10:08.279 --> 00:10:12.720 hosting a row of annual folders, every contest, every ballot, 163 00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:16.200 even betting pool receipts going back to the nineteen thirties. 164 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:20.480 The system is as much mabel S as the town's 165 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:24.039 algorithmic in its neatness, a model for the new city 166 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:27.440 clerk to emulate. I made my way directly to the 167 00:10:27.480 --> 00:10:32.679 presidential elections drawer, running a stiff finger along familiar paper. There. 168 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:37.240 Nineteen forty eight, the year Dewey defeats Truman, graced front pages. 169 00:10:37.679 --> 00:10:41.879 Everyone remembers the iconic photo Truman grinning holding up the 170 00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:46.120 asterisk Chicago Tribune that called his loss Bluffsford's entry for 171 00:10:46.159 --> 00:10:49.039 that year was fixed to its folder with a thumbtack, 172 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:52.720 gone rust orange at the edges. I slid the pages 173 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:55.399 out there neat as you please. Was the crinkled cream 174 00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:59.399 ballot slip. Harry S. Truman voted and sealed November one, 175 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:03.240 forty eight in blue ink, alongside two signatures, one of 176 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:06.080 whom was old Man Laski, the barber, my father's friend. 177 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:10.120 A date stamp, a roll of witnesses, five town residents, 178 00:11:10.600 --> 00:11:13.559 most of all, a photograph faded pink from sunlight and 179 00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:17.919 polary dyes, showing the announcement posted outside the hall before 180 00:11:17.960 --> 00:11:22.240 the actual election result. In fact, every detail pointed to 181 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:26.240 the same chronological truth. The vote was finished, public and 182 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:30.039 posted before the asterisk Tribune's press run. It wasn't a 183 00:11:30.039 --> 00:11:33.480 back dated stunt or an in joke. Our town called 184 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:36.799 it right openly, while the rest of the nation, indeed 185 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:40.519 the press called it wrong. I pressed my thumb to 186 00:11:40.559 --> 00:11:43.360 the old ink, puzzling over the odds. Could they have 187 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:46.679 guessed better than the statisticians and news wires. I wanted 188 00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:49.480 a practical reason. I made a note of the witness list, 189 00:11:49.639 --> 00:11:52.600 put the ballot away, and reopened the next folder. The 190 00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:57.320 two thousand election, Bush gore the infamous recount. Bluffford's ballots 191 00:11:57.399 --> 00:12:02.320 typed that year were sealed and witnessed November. The winning name, correct, 192 00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:06.000 of course, stood inked days ahead of Florida's final tally. 193 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:10.600 I checked further back the nineteen eighty Winter Olympics, when 194 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:14.200 our high schoolers filed ballots over their lunch hour. They 195 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:16.799 d picked the U S team to pull the greatest 196 00:12:16.879 --> 00:12:20.360 upset in sports. The tape attached to the yearbook page 197 00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:25.000 read ballots opened February nineteenth. The real game was on 198 00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:28.919 the twenty second. None of it lined up with common sense. 199 00:12:29.480 --> 00:12:32.559 I leaned out and called for Mabel, busy poking through 200 00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:36.320 the safe for registered mail. She looked up dust rag 201 00:12:36.399 --> 00:12:41.080 tucked around her wrist. Hey remember forty eight. I asked 202 00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:44.200 you ever hear whether folks really thought Truman would win? 203 00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:48.759 She shrugged. Dad said he saw it coming. Wasn't a 204 00:12:48.799 --> 00:12:52.559 popular opinion, Not with mister Grant or the Hawleys, but 205 00:12:52.639 --> 00:12:56.399 that was before he had a radio. But the records. 206 00:12:56.720 --> 00:13:01.240 I showed her the signatures. Oh sure, she said, voice fond. 207 00:13:01.759 --> 00:13:04.720 We always took it for granted. I remember that year 208 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:08.240 folks sang after they posted the result, made the school 209 00:13:08.360 --> 00:13:12.639 choir learn I'm just wild about Harry. I grinned, but 210 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:15.639 something in her answer was a half shrug, half apology. 211 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:19.720 Everyone knew it'd go Truman's way. That can't be right. 212 00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:23.840 If everyone did, then history would remember it differently. The 213 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:26.879 rest of the country was shocked. We weren't, at least 214 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:31.399 not according to our ballads. A contradiction then, not in 215 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:34.639 the paperwork, but in memory and fact, and not just 216 00:13:34.679 --> 00:13:38.000 for the dramatic years. The pattern held everywhere I looked. 217 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:41.840 I tucked the files away, closing the drawer with an 218 00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:45.120 audible thunk, the hairs on my arms rising not from 219 00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:49.919 cold but excitement, coincidence, or something more. For the first 220 00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:53.440 time in years, my old certainty faded. I resolved to 221 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:57.000 follow the trail deeper, and not simply by checking another 222 00:13:57.080 --> 00:14:01.240 year's paperwork. That evening, after supper and a half hearted 223 00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:04.360 attempt at the crossword, I pulled out the family scrap book, 224 00:14:04.639 --> 00:14:08.279 a thick album with cracked leather corners. I'd expected only 225 00:14:08.360 --> 00:14:11.159 nostalgia may be a reminder of what the tradition had 226 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:15.720 meant to my parents. Instead, I found a timeline yellowed slips, 227 00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:19.960 each with my mother's spidery date and notations. Oscars Super 228 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.320 Bowl IIIE winner, always stamped days or weeks before the event. 229 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:28.759 Most years my parents had posed us snap and develop 230 00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:32.000 beside the prediction day sign hung on the oak outside 231 00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:36.279 the school. Examining these, I was struck by the collective pride, 232 00:14:36.600 --> 00:14:39.759 a gleam in every eye, as if each resident had known, 233 00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:43.000 as if there had never been a doubt. The same 234 00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:47.200 feeling haunted the record books. The Oscars folder in Mabel's 235 00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:50.759 archive was heavy with ballots nineteen hundred and seventy four. 236 00:14:51.159 --> 00:14:54.559 The town picked the sting to win collectively and publicly 237 00:14:54.919 --> 00:14:58.360 sealed and dated two weeks before the ceremony. Even the 238 00:14:58.360 --> 00:15:02.039 betting pool slips rescu ued from old cigar boxes showed 239 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:07.279 the same thing, names, dates, outcomes, always preceding the actual results. 240 00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:11.759 In the school's yearbooks, I found photographic evidence that would 241 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:15.519 have satisfied even the most dogged outsider. A hand painted 242 00:15:15.559 --> 00:15:19.320 banner Bluffford's winning guess hung across the gym's back wall, 243 00:15:19.639 --> 00:15:22.600 with each year's ballots pinned for visiting parents to marvel 244 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:27.679 at all dated, All Springtide official. An audio cassette labeled 245 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:31.840 simply State Election nineteen seventy six played the principal's scratchy 246 00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:34.960 voice announcing the town's pick again a day before the 247 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:40.039 state numbers were called. Everywhere I looked, the pattern reaffirmed itself. 248 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:44.919 Each record glimpsed confirmed another fragment. In missus Carlyle's corner 249 00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:48.039 at the library, a cork board backing supported an endless 250 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:52.200 patchwork of old newspaper cuttings, her grandfather's voice echoing through 251 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:56.799 an interview. Blufford keeps in step with history. Sam's reaction 252 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:00.279 was more acidic. I caught him at the garage bickering 253 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:05.320 with his apprentice about circuit diagrams, those old dates, he said, 254 00:16:05.399 --> 00:16:08.360 when I brought up the Truman folder, back dated for 255 00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:11.639 the laugh of it, Probably or maybe everyone's just retro 256 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:15.000 fitted the memory. People like a good legend, but numbers 257 00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:18.799 don't lie. He thumped the tailgate of a truck for emphasis, 258 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:23.440 raising a faint dust of sawdust and July pollen. Later, 259 00:16:23.559 --> 00:16:27.000 my niece Lauren, just visiting from Chicago fresh from a 260 00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:30.480 public health internship, peeked at my pile of prediction slips 261 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:34.639 while passing through the kitchen. That's quirky, uncle, Will. Every 262 00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:37.480 town wants something to tell itself. I mean, look at 263 00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:40.320 all the little legends people tack up. Maybe you're just 264 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:43.480 ahead of the trend. She didn't ask for details, didn't 265 00:16:43.480 --> 00:16:46.159 probe deeper to her. It was little more than a 266 00:16:46.240 --> 00:16:50.759 regional coloring book. Most locals, when questioned, would shake their 267 00:16:50.759 --> 00:16:54.559 heads in genial amusement. Old George at Cliff's Dinah, who 268 00:16:54.639 --> 00:16:57.519 ran the prediction pool for a decade, treated the record 269 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:00.600 as self evident. Folks just have an no for it. 270 00:17:00.919 --> 00:17:04.160 You get a feel after a while. Yet, watching him 271 00:17:04.200 --> 00:17:07.480 recount the winners, his eyes grew distant, as if trying 272 00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:10.920 and failing to recall a time when things went awry. 273 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:14.720 But when I brought up the nineteen sixty eight World Series, 274 00:17:15.039 --> 00:17:18.599 Bluffford's ballots in favor of Detroit before Game seven had 275 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:21.839 even unfolded. Before the Tigers trounced the Cardinals in a 276 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:25.480 last dinning drama, missus Carlyle drew in a thoughtful breath. 277 00:17:26.039 --> 00:17:29.559 She recalled how half the town backed the Cardinals until overnight. 278 00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:33.279 It felt like the mood shifted by ballot day Detroit 279 00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:37.480 won out. Sometimes the wind just changes. My father used 280 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:40.720 to say, never could put a finger on it. It 281 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:44.759 was difficult to ignore. The evidence wasn't circumstantial or casual. 282 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:49.000 The record was there on slips and screens and faded photos. 283 00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:51.519 It was, so far as I could prove, not a 284 00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:54.599 fluke at all, And even the suggestion of back dating, 285 00:17:54.839 --> 00:17:58.559 of massaging memory failed in the face of witnessed, dated 286 00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:02.359 displayed ballots. If the story persisted, it did so with 287 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:06.000 its own stubborn logic. Yet the rest of the world 288 00:18:06.119 --> 00:18:10.920 rolled forward, indifferent, untouched. It was a quietly wondrous feeling, 289 00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:14.759 a sense that something ran contrary to known laws and 290 00:18:14.839 --> 00:18:19.160 had done so in plain sight. Untroubled for decades. I 291 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:23.759 spent the week end further immersed vacillating between elation and bafflement, 292 00:18:24.079 --> 00:18:27.680 unable to sleep for the quiet thrill of unearthly regularity. 293 00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:32.799 What made Bluffford so certain and so infallible? When Monday's 294 00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:36.200 mail root beckoned, the ballot question lingered at the edge 295 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:41.440 of every task. Old explanations comfortable and neat fell away. 296 00:18:41.920 --> 00:18:45.839 It wasn't error or chance or collective deception. What then 297 00:18:46.519 --> 00:18:50.960 my old skepticism had finally crumbled into honest to goodness curiosity. 298 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:54.720 The only thing to do was to dig deeper. If 299 00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:59.000 the streak was not a myth, but a persistent, irreducible phenomenon, 300 00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:01.720 then the army, Sir, or at least the next clue 301 00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:04.720 had to reside somewhere between the ballots and the people 302 00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:08.119 who filled them out. The universe must have sensed my 303 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:12.039 newphone obsession, because by the following Thursday, the town hall 304 00:19:12.119 --> 00:19:16.839 greeted me with something unexpected. Julia Liang, data science major 305 00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:21.400 and temporary Chicago transplant, introduced herself with a sheepish handshake 306 00:19:21.640 --> 00:19:25.319 and a spiral bound notebook. She de kissed her mother 307 00:19:25.359 --> 00:19:28.319 good bye just outside cliffs, with a promise to bring 308 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:31.759 pie back to her dorm, and presented herself at my elbow, 309 00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:35.839 notebook open. She hoped, she said, to run a sort 310 00:19:35.839 --> 00:19:39.000 of statistics project for a course at her college, a 311 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:43.400 full compilation of Bluffford's predictions for her professor's analysis. It 312 00:19:43.480 --> 00:19:45.880 was the first time, as far as I knew, that 313 00:19:45.960 --> 00:19:49.559 someone trained in numbers eager for outliers had piled into 314 00:19:49.559 --> 00:19:53.440 our archive room with a laptop, three USB keys, and 315 00:19:53.480 --> 00:19:58.240 an appetite for excruciating accuracy. Welcomed her, led her through 316 00:19:58.279 --> 00:20:02.000 cabinets and folders, and watched she indexed dates, outcomes, and 317 00:20:02.039 --> 00:20:06.079 official witnesses. Her questions sharp but politely delivered, pressed in 318 00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:09.079 on places even I hadn't considered. Did we save prediction 319 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:12.400 slips for crop prices and spelling bees? Yes, in a 320 00:20:12.440 --> 00:20:15.880 brown folder marked MISK. Do we include years when, say, 321 00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:19.160 the oscars were borcotted? We did? Picking the winner anyway, 322 00:20:19.799 --> 00:20:23.519 even weather predictions precise to the date sometimes entered the 323 00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:27.400 betting pool for fun, Julia built a table so dense 324 00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:31.279 it looked like a snake's belly. Each contest, each ballot, 325 00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:36.000 the outcome, the filing date, the witnesses. After only two hours, 326 00:20:36.039 --> 00:20:39.039 she pulled out her phone and called her professor, voice 327 00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:44.039 low but urgent. These records aren't just unusually accurate, I 328 00:20:44.119 --> 00:20:47.960 heard her say into the phone. There, statistically, it's like 329 00:20:48.039 --> 00:20:51.079 finding a flock of flying pigs. The odds are off 330 00:20:51.079 --> 00:20:54.279 the charts. I've never seen anything like it, even with 331 00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:58.680 honest ballads. She ran three models, then four, and sat 332 00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:02.000 blinking at the screen. At her insistence, I helped check 333 00:21:02.039 --> 00:21:05.240 a handful of the oldest ballots. Several had signatures of 334 00:21:05.319 --> 00:21:09.119 outside witnesses. The regional editor of the Asterisk star ledger 335 00:21:09.240 --> 00:21:13.640 Asterisk a census worker even one year. A traveling columnist 336 00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:18.119 from down state, Julia tripplechecked the processes, no opportunity for 337 00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:23.000 after the fact correction, photographs lined up dates were irrefutable. 338 00:21:23.960 --> 00:21:28.000 The probability of this is, she started, then stopped, mouth 339 00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:31.799 working as her numbers scrolled higher and higher. I thought, 340 00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:35.079 maybe you had an unusual selection effect or group think. 341 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:39.759 But across this many Asterisk events with external witnesses, there's 342 00:21:39.759 --> 00:21:44.200 no precedent in any statistical literature. She met my eyes, 343 00:21:44.519 --> 00:21:49.160 suddenly less confident. What exactly do people here think is happening? 344 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:54.279 I shook my head. Honestly, it's the Bluffsford Way, I offered, 345 00:21:54.559 --> 00:21:58.079 feeling how thin the old answers sounded among all that data. 346 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:03.319 They call it that nothing more. She laughed, tight and uncertain, 347 00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:07.000 then tucked her hair behind one ear, lost for words. 348 00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:11.759 Local officials, when Julia approached them with her findings, only smiled. 349 00:22:12.440 --> 00:22:15.759 The mare, a broad shouldered woman in her forties, told 350 00:22:15.759 --> 00:22:19.799 her with cheerful finality. Oh, it keeps life interesting. I 351 00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:22.119 don't think any of us worry too much about being 352 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:25.920 right all the time. It's tradition, isn't it nice once 353 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:29.599 in a while for a story to simply work. No 354 00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:33.279 one claimed cheating, No one cared to offer an explanation 355 00:22:33.400 --> 00:22:37.559 more complex or less charming. Even Sam, the arch skeptic, 356 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:41.200 just shrugged when presented with the print outs. Must be 357 00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:44.400 some kind of home town advantage, he joked, though his 358 00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:48.839 voice sounded slightly thinner than usual. As Julia packed up 359 00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:51.839 her equipment, still wide eyed, she pressed a c D 360 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:55.359 of her data into my palm. Show this to some one, 361 00:22:55.640 --> 00:22:58.480 she said, as if the proof itself could conjure meaning 362 00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:02.640 for me. The revelation landed softly. It wasn't just the 363 00:23:02.680 --> 00:23:05.720 absurd scale of the luck or the meticulous nature of 364 00:23:05.720 --> 00:23:10.039 the documentation. It was something more fundamental. Away These people, 365 00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:13.079 these routines, this little town seemed to partake in a 366 00:23:13.119 --> 00:23:17.440 reality where prediction and outcome grew strange and inseparable. I 367 00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:21.240 thought about how every year townsfolk gathered for the ballot box. 368 00:23:21.680 --> 00:23:25.559 There was no grand voting strategy, no evident leader swaying 369 00:23:25.599 --> 00:23:30.079 the group. Each wrote their slip, trusting some communal current. 370 00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:34.279 The mystery wasn't in the logistics anymore, or even in 371 00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:38.880 the math. It lay instead in the intersection where prediction itself, 372 00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:43.240 made humble by repetition, acquired a kind of uncanny substance. 373 00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:47.359 At the midpoint of an ordinary Thursday, I found myself 374 00:23:47.400 --> 00:23:50.640 standing in a little wave of astonishment, no longer trying 375 00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:54.119 to solve for chance or error, but instead opening myself 376 00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:58.519 to a brand new category of impossibility. Impossibility as a 377 00:23:58.559 --> 00:24:04.000 communal fact whitnessed and documented, unforced but underlying everything I 378 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:07.720 had ever known. Here, I was delighted and just a 379 00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:11.440 little bit terrified by the widening horizon of what that 380 00:24:11.559 --> 00:24:16.200 realization might require of me. Julia left town the next morning, 381 00:24:16.519 --> 00:24:19.400 drifting off in her mother's old civic, the trunk heavy 382 00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:23.240 with pie and statistical impossibility. After the car turned the 383 00:24:23.279 --> 00:24:27.119 bend half glimpsed between Sumac and Pale Maples, the sensation 384 00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:30.960 she left behind was something like vertigo. I wandered through 385 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:33.000 the day with the memory of her voice still in 386 00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:35.960 my ears. The odds are off the charts, and a 387 00:24:36.039 --> 00:24:39.359 nervous energy in my feet that kept me moving, rarely 388 00:24:39.400 --> 00:24:43.319 pausing long in any one room. Once in my younger 389 00:24:43.400 --> 00:24:46.680 years I might have let go of such questions, content 390 00:24:46.759 --> 00:24:50.079 to trust the patchwork logic of small places. But the 391 00:24:50.119 --> 00:24:53.880 certainty with which Julia grasped the strangeness now left me 392 00:24:53.960 --> 00:24:58.000 more awake than ever. By mid afternoon, the post office 393 00:24:58.039 --> 00:25:00.960 was closing up. I pocketed her ne neatly labeled C 394 00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:04.920 D circling the building before heading out. The sky had 395 00:25:04.920 --> 00:25:07.640 turned brittle and blue, the kind of autumn light that 396 00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:11.240 forces everything into sharper focus, from the network of cracks 397 00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:13.960 in the window sills to the stray thread on my coat. 398 00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:17.799 The quieter I became the louder. The mystery rang out, 399 00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:24.400 Why Bluffsford? Why this streak sustained through border wars, the depression, floods, 400 00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:29.119 a century of migrations, and always always an unbroken record 401 00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:33.079