WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.719 There's something almost ceremonial about pushing open the green door 2 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:11.160 to Mahoney's booknook. The brass handle is once moothed by 3 00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:13.519 decades of hands, mine among them, a reassuring anchor in 4 00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:17.160 a world that generally prefers frictionist novelty. My shoes always 5 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:19.280 catch the rubber matt just enough to remind me I'm 6 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:21.879 no longer outside. The warmth and fassier of the bookshop 7 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:24.160 rises to meet me, blend in the perfume of old 8 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.399 paper with sun worned would polish, and the promise of 9 00:00:26.440 --> 00:00:29.519 gentle company. Tuesdays are my day for Mahone's, a habit 10 00:00:29.559 --> 00:00:31.839 formed after retirement, hadleys in my calendar and left me 11 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:33.920 searching for both purpose and a place to carry my 12 00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:38.200 lists inside. The world continues as it should. Missus and 13 00:00:38.359 --> 00:00:41.759 Mahoney herself is shelving hardback along the fiction wall, humming 14 00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:44.359 under her breath red aproncot on the corner of a shelf. 15 00:00:44.920 --> 00:00:47.079 Missus and g Ever prisoned in her knit a bray 16 00:00:47.399 --> 00:00:49.479 is at the crosswood spinner, shaking the little rack as 17 00:00:49.479 --> 00:00:51.640 if it might release just one more penny collection from 18 00:00:51.719 --> 00:00:55.439 years past, neared back mister dar Silver Justice by fuckals 19 00:00:55.439 --> 00:00:58.399 and squinted at the latest stamp catalogs, methodically turning pages 20 00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:02.759 as if every perforation has prosed no significance. Conversation hums low, 21 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:06.239 observations about the weather, speculation about the mayor's new parking scheme, 22 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:09.159 news of an upcoming cross fair. The world outside of 23 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:11.200 the world, with its headlines and dizzing changes, can be 24 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:14.159 held at bayfron out here. The sale table, though, is 25 00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:16.879 what first draws my attention. It always sits by a 26 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:19.799 sunlit window, orbiting just out of the main stacks, where 27 00:01:19.879 --> 00:01:22.239 dust motes outline each hard edge in late morning light. 28 00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:25.560 Sale are all his books? Reads the sign letter in 29 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:27.719 a hand I recognize as enders, though she streaked it 30 00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:30.519 with new marker over the years. If you visit regularly, 31 00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:32.120 and I do, you develop a sense for its odd, 32 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:35.719 stable and stable composition. It isn't that the titles never change, 33 00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:37.480 nor that they rotate as a shelf might and a 34 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:40.840 well managed library. The table feels as if somehow it 35 00:01:40.879 --> 00:01:43.400 belongs to a separate rhythm, ignoring the usual commerce of 36 00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:46.840 books to day. Is no exception in among the stack 37 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:49.959 of volume on or chemical recipes, faded cookbooks, a church's 38 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:52.599 Cessqua's Centennial Commemorative Affair, a book of tourist sketches. My 39 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:56.280 eye is caught by something powerfully familiar, Junior Encyclopedia of 40 00:01:56.319 --> 00:02:00.239 the World, nineteen sixty eight edition, Brown Library, Buckram, bright 41 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:03.200 gold on the spine and a constellation of tiny exact 42 00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:05.400 dentil on the bottom, where I remember with a winds 43 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:08.319 dropping it on gravel as a child. My own pencil 44 00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:10.879 inscription should be on the inside cover property of Philip 45 00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:13.240 by please return. I found my hand had been nervously 46 00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:16.039 careful to be looped twice. But as I opened the cover, 47 00:02:16.159 --> 00:02:19.360 the inscription isn't there. The page is pristine, no trace 48 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:22.400 of a raised graphite. The dust jacket, which was battered 49 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:24.639 nearly to oblivion when I donated at fifteen years ago, 50 00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:27.919 is chris barely faded. The edges that should have been 51 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:32.120 chewed by housecat and time seem smooth, almost new. What's more, 52 00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:34.439 the notes, the ones I'd inscribed in the margins about 53 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:37.639 spiders and the Bay of Fundia missing. The boat fills cold, 54 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:39.719 as if it's freshly come from some untouched shelf, and 55 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:41.639 not the one I crowned it into a secret relief 56 00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:43.759 in some shame. If I honest among my clean out 57 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:48.879 boxes and approaches, then armsful of dust jackets, Ah, Philip, 58 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:51.719 on your regular mission, find something good to day. The 59 00:02:51.719 --> 00:02:54.159 sleeves of her cardigan are always pushed back, just enough 60 00:02:54.159 --> 00:02:56.879 to reveal the freckle tattoos of flour and ink. She 61 00:02:57.039 --> 00:02:59.800 peers kindly at the encyclopedia in my hands, head candied, 62 00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:03.360 isn't that a sturdy looking polyume? I believe it's one 63 00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:05.960 I donated myself, I say, angling the books so she 64 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.240 can see the pasted the library cartholders at the back. 65 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:10.719 But it looks better than the day I brought it in. 66 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:13.919 She takes it and weighs it thoughtfully, then shakes her head. 67 00:03:14.599 --> 00:03:17.479 No memory of looking that one. I'm afraid. Sometimes books 68 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:19.400 just find their way out here. People leave things on 69 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:21.639 the sale table, or maybe I wheel something out now 70 00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:24.159 and then strange, isn't it things land where they meant it? 71 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:27.080 Or so? I think? Her laugh is light If I 72 00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:29.680 organize it strictly, I'm sure the whole system of rebel. 73 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:32.840 I study her, trying to discern a joke or feigned apology, 74 00:03:32.919 --> 00:03:36.199 but she's already moving toward a trins stack of reader's digestinthologies. 75 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:39.360 The sale table, as ever, has a life that's partly hers, 76 00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:42.840 and yet somehow a part. I turn the encyclopedia over again. 77 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:45.879 Its weight is undeniable, page is clean, the paper gul 78 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:48.240 and holding a subtle with flight, newly trimmed grass overlaying 79 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:51.439 old linen. The comfort of familiarity, the wholeness and strangeness 80 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:54.240 of a book change beyond explanation. Sits squarely in my hands. 81 00:03:54.879 --> 00:03:56.680 Are you sure you don't remember this one coming out 82 00:03:56.680 --> 00:04:00.159 on the table, I ask gently this time, but she 83 00:04:00.280 --> 00:04:03.879 is distracted, chuckling at something. Miss esseng is saying books. 84 00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:06.680 Wonder Philip, she replies, and her tone is vinal, sun 85 00:04:06.759 --> 00:04:09.840 bright but unhelpful. Best not to let them catch you out. 86 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:13.840 I find my usual seat, encyclopedia in hand, curiosity quietly 87 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:16.920 anchoring itself beside the warmth of the shop's routine. Most 88 00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:18.920 of what I know about Mahone's as rooted in years 89 00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:21.879 of consistent routine. A weekly comfort are structured and undemanding 90 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:24.959 is breeding. It's not the only bookshop in town, nor 91 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:28.079 the oldest, but with its uneven floorboards and stubborn heat registers, 92 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:31.079 it feels like someplace that has always existed. I'm a 93 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:34.079 creature of habits, retired now from public librarianship thanks to 94 00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:36.399 a reluctant tourne in my lower back that finally convinced 95 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:39.120 me the heavy boxes must become someone else's burden. My 96 00:04:39.199 --> 00:04:41.560 day's move in an orbit predictable enough to keep loneliness 97 00:04:41.560 --> 00:04:44.040 at Bay morning walk down Maple Lane, waved to misses 98 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:47.040 laundry as she fills bird feeders. Brief deitra passes so 99 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:50.079 called historic mural on Sandersen, which was pained to twelve 100 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:53.600 years ago and already flakes like old pastry. Then Mahoney's 101 00:04:53.639 --> 00:04:55.480 for the bulk of my browsing, where the chairs are 102 00:04:55.480 --> 00:04:58.240 mismashed and the old cash register makes a satisfying corchunk 103 00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:00.519 each time ender rings up so much as a bookmark. 104 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:03.600 I like having a task in mind. A missing volume 105 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:05.879 from the nineteen forty seven reference set, a school year 106 00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:08.519 from the forgotten class at seventy three, sometimes even a 107 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:11.279 naive hope of finding a first edition, but as often 108 00:05:11.319 --> 00:05:13.720 as not adrift by the sale table just because it's there. 109 00:05:14.319 --> 00:05:17.360 The store of regulars anchored the place Missus and g 110 00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:20.680 claims are spot every Thursday, amassing puzzler magazines, and sometimes 111 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:22.639 reciting the best cluses of testing us for a wit. 112 00:05:23.399 --> 00:05:25.600 Mister DAWs Over travels from the next suburb ofver for 113 00:05:25.639 --> 00:05:28.519 the Postal catalogs, his knowledge of international issues so deep 114 00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:30.759 he might as well be the editor in chief. Thou 115 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:34.439 trance in browsers students hunting cheap study, guides parents steering 116 00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:37.199 small children away from the fragile shelves. Even the autourists 117 00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:40.000 come to photograph the exterior for its old charm. The 118 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:43.519 sale table, by consensus, is its own zonea curiosity for most, 119 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:45.959 a source of bargains for a few. No one ever 120 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:48.399 appears in haste. No one, as far as I've seen, 121 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:50.519 buys the full table or clears it out after a 122 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:53.519 single visit. Books linger there, and when they vanish, new 123 00:05:53.519 --> 00:05:56.199 ones replace them so seamlessly that even a librarian's instinct 124 00:05:56.199 --> 00:05:59.279 can't spot. The join end to herself is always in motion, 125 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:01.879 but not what i'd call efficient, Her circuit never quite logical. 126 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:04.639 Her explanations for inventory ships full of harmless hand waving. 127 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:07.439 Ask her about the prudence of a lithograph or a chapuck, 128 00:06:07.480 --> 00:06:09.519 and she'll spin a tale about ve niece's cousin clearing 129 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:12.519 a storage locker or a school library donation, but seldom 130 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:16.079 does she locate the details you seek. Inventory lists, she claims, 131 00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:18.800 only need to exist. When the city licensing board appears 132 00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:22.079 with a clipboard about the sale table, she is most obscure. 133 00:06:22.759 --> 00:06:25.319 It keeps itself lively, She's fond of saying, and that's 134 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:27.560 as it should be. When I compare notes with my 135 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:29.720 friend Helen, the closest thing our neighborhood has to a 136 00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:33.040 living time, Stampa usually gets mart crisp bunsers. She's the 137 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:36.480 local authority on architectural history, keeper of old walking through pamphlets, 138 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:38.920 and a fierce defender of the correct order for display 139 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:42.360 windows at holidays. Helen has a memory as sharp fild 140 00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:45.920 wire and a low tolerance for madrifocor. Her perspective, coupled 141 00:06:45.959 --> 00:06:48.639 with evidence from other regulars, has always made me confident 142 00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:50.480 that I know the boundaries and best secrets of this 143 00:06:50.600 --> 00:06:54.120 quarter mile historic block. And yet the sale table continues 144 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:57.040 to elude accounting its occupation of the sun. That patch 145 00:06:57.079 --> 00:06:59.240 by the window is constant, but its dietary habits, so 146 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:02.360 to speak, defy all expectation. Some books return weak to 147 00:07:02.399 --> 00:07:05.920 week only to disappear with no explanation. Occasionally a title 148 00:07:05.959 --> 00:07:08.600 won my call unsaleable, like the physics of postal sorting, 149 00:07:08.639 --> 00:07:12.079 second edition reappears after an absence, with no evidence of 150 00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:15.199 pre change or stocking. Yet the turnover is never brisk. 151 00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:18.319 The table neither empties nor fellows, but simply endurers, always 152 00:07:18.360 --> 00:07:21.199 in a state one might call barely altered. It is 153 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:23.639 small wonder, perhaps that I'd begun to accept this as 154 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:25.959 one of the harmless oddities of neighborhood life, like the 155 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:28.360 chronically wrung clock over the cafe, or the muralist who 156 00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:30.920 keeps repainting the same scene in slightly weird to colors. 157 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:34.000 Until this morning, I out of bed a libraries worth 158 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:36.240 of old catalogs that I was on familiar terms with 159 00:07:36.279 --> 00:07:39.759 the logic of Mahone's stacks. My sense of satisfaction at 160 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:43.240 having donated that battered Encyclopedia childhood relic, perhaps more shame 161 00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:46.120 than treasure, had faded years ago. Seeing it, though now 162 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:49.279 suddenly restored and stripped at my marks, set off a small, 163 00:07:49.319 --> 00:07:52.360 persistent ditch. Why was the sale table displaying a book 164 00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:54.319 that seemed in finer fattle than when I released it? 165 00:07:54.920 --> 00:07:57.560 Why was my name erased, both literally and in a 166 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.600 way figuratively. It was enough to make a habit driven 167 00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:03.560 man question what else he'd missed. The next Tuesday, I 168 00:08:03.639 --> 00:08:06.360 arrived with the plan, after my usual circuit of the 169 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:08.720 antique rail maps and a brief chat with mister Darsilva 170 00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:11.519 about rare Brazilian air MILS, I paused at the sale table. 171 00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:14.240 I had half expected the encyclopedia to be gone, but 172 00:08:14.279 --> 00:08:16.120 there it sat, now shifted afoot to the left, its 173 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:19.360 cover angle toward the window. This time my gaze shifted 174 00:08:19.399 --> 00:08:21.920 to another book, Memories of Maple Square, a slim hark 175 00:08:21.959 --> 00:08:24.639 of a with fading gilt letters and a heavy photographic insert, 176 00:08:25.279 --> 00:08:27.839 a booklet about the local garden park. Its opening pages 177 00:08:27.879 --> 00:08:30.600 introduced the reader quite confidently to a belove town tradition 178 00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:33.960 since nineteen fifty four reading for other Confusion, set in 179 00:08:34.559 --> 00:08:38.320 Maple Square. The location from the addresses and nearby shop 180 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:40.360 fronts in the black and white photos was a mistake 181 00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:43.039 ofly drawn from familiar streets and intersection just two blocks 182 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.600 north of Mahone's, where now only a tangle of rose 183 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:48.799 bushes and an electricity substition fizzle quietly on Sunday, mornings. 184 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.360 Yet these emerges showed another version, a wide green fenced 185 00:08:52.360 --> 00:08:56.000 by wooden benches, crowded with gelips and children's floats, cheeks 186 00:08:56.039 --> 00:08:59.159 draped up of cheerful picnickers Gulip Festival nineteen sixty five, 187 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:02.480 hand painted in curve the faces for much younger versions 188 00:09:02.480 --> 00:09:06.159 of old neighbors, the buildings so precisely situated, so mistakably familiar, 189 00:09:06.200 --> 00:09:08.960 but all slightly off the book comfortently referenced to you 190 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.120 as of festivities, volunteers, fundraisers, a brief attempt at a 191 00:09:12.120 --> 00:09:16.120 Tuesday even concert series in nineteen seventy two. Two elaborates 192 00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:18.360 seemed for a forgery. And yet I could not recall 193 00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:20.759 this park, nor could I reconcile its existence with the 194 00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:23.279 realities of the tangle of utilities and half forgotten chain 195 00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:25.720 link fens that have defined that intersection. As long as 196 00:09:25.720 --> 00:09:29.840 I remember, the street names were correct, the building's barbershop grosser, 197 00:09:30.039 --> 00:09:32.440 even in some photos, a glint of the Mahoney sign 198 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:35.960 clear and recognizable. The only thing missing, persistently was my 199 00:09:36.039 --> 00:09:38.840 memory of any park, any festival, or any announcement in 200 00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:42.080 the town newsletters. Enda returned from the register, and I 201 00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:45.200 called her over. Did you see this maple square? Was 202 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:47.879 there ever a garden park at seventh in Kessler? She 203 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:51.480 leaned in. Not that I recall, Philip looks pleasant, though, 204 00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:53.799 doesn't These sorts of things pop up from time to time. 205 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:56.440 Maybe it was proposed and never built. She thumb threw 206 00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:00.080 the photos, humming appreciatively at the parade float. Boksgi gek cre. 207 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:02.519 You know you should ask mister DAWs Silva. He's been 208 00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:05.360 here long enough to remember just about everything. I turned 209 00:10:05.360 --> 00:10:08.639 to missus Nji, waving the book. You too, you remember 210 00:10:08.639 --> 00:10:12.240 a tulip festival? She squinted, then shook her head. No 211 00:10:12.399 --> 00:10:14.879 tulip's there, no square or eater. But that looks like 212 00:10:14.879 --> 00:10:18.200 the old page Bickery sign, doesn't it. That bakery, as 213 00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:20.240 far as I know, existed three miles away on lake 214 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:23.000 Front and closed before I was born. I purchased the 215 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:27.960 book five dollars, no argument before your collection. Enda smiled 216 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:30.960 as if she knew she'd handed me a puzzle that afternoon, 217 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:32.840 and deep into the next I fell down the pleasant 218 00:10:32.919 --> 00:10:36.120 stubborn hole that is the public records archive. I began, 219 00:10:36.200 --> 00:10:38.720 as any one of librarian Stockwood with the bissitt check 220 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:44.759 mahone's neighborhood survey maps, park development proposals, city council minutes. Nowhere, 221 00:10:44.919 --> 00:10:47.240 Not even during the flower maudboom of the late sixties 222 00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:50.519 was a Maple Square documented. The utility company had held 223 00:10:50.519 --> 00:10:53.519 the property for at least sixty five years. I produced 224 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:55.879 the town's news at her index, flipping backward past the 225 00:10:55.919 --> 00:10:59.440 holiday craft's fairs, pancake breakfasts, and portraits of every earnesty 226 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:03.799 the scout who devastacticin for charity. No Chilip festivals, no 227 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:07.000 mention of parades through that block, no photos, not even 228 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:09.600 a whisper in editorials lamenting the lack of green space, 229 00:11:10.360 --> 00:11:12.440 Feeling the quiet thrill of a proper hunt. I checked 230 00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:16.200 every detail. Memories of Maple Square dropped, cross referencing names, shops, 231 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:20.000 and annual events. Three local businesses, the cheese Shop and Cobblers, 232 00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:22.240 a pet shop with a friendly corky mascot, appeared to 233 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:25.360 robust into books accounts during the supposed sixties heyday closing 234 00:11:25.399 --> 00:11:27.759 according to their narrative, just before the gas station and 235 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:31.519 utility enclosure expanded. But everywhere else I looked, no mention, 236 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:34.720 even the city library shelf of a lost shopping districts 237 00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:37.720 skip the square entirely. I checked photo Archhouse in the 238 00:11:37.799 --> 00:11:42.039 Historical Society's website, scrolling slowly through every yellowt digitized image. 239 00:11:42.559 --> 00:11:45.320 None matched. At home, I pulled out my own shoe 240 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:47.960 books of family snapshots, hoping by some accident to find 241 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:50.159 a photo from a Mother's Day parade or summer bake off. 242 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:53.200 All I could find were familiar faces, my father grinning 243 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:55.440 in sunglasses at the wheel of our old station wagon, 244 00:11:55.519 --> 00:11:58.080 a neighbor, Missess Finn's logging potted violets, but no sign 245 00:11:58.159 --> 00:12:01.320 of community gathering in a stretch of town. A week later, 246 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:03.639 returning to Mayonnies with both a sense of defeat and 247 00:12:03.679 --> 00:12:06.879 deeper intrigue, I found the sale table once again reconstituted. 248 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:10.440 The encyclopedia was gone. Now Maple Square sat directly atop 249 00:12:10.440 --> 00:12:12.600 a bat at Kopokitt's title, in the same looping front 250 00:12:12.679 --> 00:12:14.519 as the cover had used for the bread basket A 251 00:12:14.600 --> 00:12:17.399 century of baking in our town. The illustration showed a 252 00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:19.600 bickery at a junction I woke across weekly full of 253 00:12:19.639 --> 00:12:22.240 shop as a motorcycle's parked in a neat row. The 254 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:25.120 block was unmistakable. Yet I've never known a bakery to 255 00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:27.360 stand there and never seen a photo so crowded and 256 00:12:27.399 --> 00:12:30.639 lively on that stretch. The book's introduction was effusive. For 257 00:12:30.679 --> 00:12:33.039 a hundred years, The bread Basket has filled our mornings 258 00:12:33.120 --> 00:12:35.320 was sent and purpose, from the first Wells Fair entry 259 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:37.639 in nineteen twelve to the Thursday bagel races. It has 260 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:41.440 been the hard of our mornings. Schedules, bigarf histories, community 261 00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:44.200 service volunteers, all documented with the matter of fact affection 262 00:12:44.279 --> 00:12:48.200 of someone who had truly lived this. Moments and more photos, crowds, 263 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:51.519 opening ceremonies, the mare congratulating a child in flower dusted 264 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:54.600 overalls at the cafe, crossed the street, I met Helen. 265 00:12:55.200 --> 00:12:57.320 She was delighted by the find. If a bakery of 266 00:12:57.360 --> 00:12:59.679 that size in that spot ever existed, I'd have the 267 00:12:59.679 --> 00:13:02.799 city permit logs to prove it, she insisted. She ran 268 00:13:02.840 --> 00:13:05.759 her finger down the list of contributors. These are real 269 00:13:05.759 --> 00:13:08.679 family names, yes, but none ever ran a bakery. Whoever 270 00:13:08.679 --> 00:13:10.919 wrote this had access to the local gossip. At least 271 00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:14.360 we sat together, leafing through the Bread Basket and memories 272 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:18.080 of Maple Square, examining every face in storefront. I tried 273 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:21.200 to detect photo at its stray pixels unusual shadows, anything 274 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:24.679 out of place. The paper fell slightly cool, The color 275 00:13:24.759 --> 00:13:26.879 sections had a faint newness, despite the day line on 276 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:29.720 the copyright page published nineteen eighty seven by the Maple 277 00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:33.039 Civic Association, a group that, by my research, last met 278 00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:35.720 in nineteen fifty eight. Are you sure this is in 279 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:39.120 a university prank, Helen asked, though her tone was half play. 280 00:13:39.720 --> 00:13:42.679 It's uncanny. The details are off kilter, but the confidence 281 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:46.279 is total. Over the next several visits, I began collecting 282 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.440 whatever impossible books appeared on the table. I kept a 283 00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:52.240 log in print data, subjects any referent yet and confirm 284 00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:55.480 their physical feel or cover notes. I started to notice 285 00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:58.720 patterns in the parade of peculiarities. The sale table did 286 00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:01.000 not appear to cycle through books in it any logical order, 287 00:14:01.279 --> 00:14:04.639 nor did it rely on anyone's recent donations. More than that, 288 00:14:04.840 --> 00:14:07.919 some books seemed to display their own unique, almost playful anomalies. 289 00:14:08.639 --> 00:14:11.639 I leaf through Pickick Memories nineteen seventy three at listed 290 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:14.159 day Smith's embarked that, to my knowledge, had never been 291 00:14:14.200 --> 00:14:16.559 more than a vacant lot. The pose photographs show children 292 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:19.360 and banners, and beneath one in the lower margin, a faint, 293 00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:23.360 looping pencil annotation. Was it always this way? The handwriting 294 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:26.320 gave me pause. It bore a striking resemblance to my 295 00:14:26.360 --> 00:14:28.720 own early couse of similar enough to make my heart squeeze, 296 00:14:28.759 --> 00:14:31.879 but just slightly off, the capital letters larger. The habit 297 00:14:31.960 --> 00:14:35.600 for looped ads reversed. Some volumes smelt of typeertanks so 298 00:14:35.639 --> 00:14:39.519 fresh it over road the underlying paper mold. Marginal notes appeared, 299 00:14:39.639 --> 00:14:41.879 some fading as I read, others vibrant and full of 300 00:14:41.879 --> 00:14:46.000 tiny notations, queries about recipes, arrows pointing to grinning faces. 301 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:49.399 A few times book plate saw library card pockets matched, 302 00:14:49.440 --> 00:14:52.559 and I recognized catalog numbers from systems i'd never seen. 303 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:55.879 Each volume constructed its own, intact, detailed vision of a 304 00:14:55.919 --> 00:14:58.240 community history, so close to the real that I questioned 305 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:01.039 on more than one occasion the security of my own recollections. 306 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:05.399 And yet no terror, just a deep, continuing age, A mystery. 307 00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:07.919 I tugged my professional pride, in my amateur sense of belonging. 308 00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:13.000 What was the table surfacing exactly forgotten? If emmer deliberate 309 00:15:13.080 --> 00:15:16.759 hoaxes by an anonymous massalgia artist, or were he's honest 310 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:19.000 and tell the Ghosts of Memory? Released by the gentle 311 00:15:19.080 --> 00:15:22.440 encouragement of regular footfall and un critical attention. Helen and 312 00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:25.039 I tested everything we could, the Fire Department's archive, the 313 00:15:25.080 --> 00:15:29.279 newspaper's microfiche census, w reca's searching for bakery owners, parade permits, 314 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:32.840 floral supplies, and even summer employment logs kept at city Hall. 315 00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:35.559 We found nothing to link this impossible archive to the 316 00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:38.480 living record, nor any reference to the bakeries, parks or 317 00:15:38.519 --> 00:15:41.759 pageants described in the sale books. Yet the sale table 318 00:15:41.799 --> 00:15:44.000 never abated in its gentle were the always new books, 319 00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:46.360 always the sense that the next volume might finally settle 320 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:48.879 a single stubborn question. It was a month in when 321 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:52.600 my understanding shifted. I began, as I now always did, 322 00:15:52.639 --> 00:15:57.360 with catalog I'd started at home a spreadshee states, authors, locations, pages, 323 00:15:57.399 --> 00:16:00.480 every entry tracked and footnoted. But the patterns emerging now 324 00:16:00.519 --> 00:16:03.480 were different. While some books were reference plausible but undocumented 325 00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:05.679 street fairs or the opening of a butcher shop in 326 00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:08.559 the nineteen fifties, others began to reference subtly different timelines, 327 00:16:08.679 --> 00:16:11.519 mayoral elections with winners. I never recall teachers and neighbors 328 00:16:11.559 --> 00:16:14.200 described as retiring years before their real counterparts did. Or 329 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:16.399 running for positions in clubs or concils I had never 330 00:16:16.440 --> 00:16:19.720 heard of. Then there was neighborhood Parade nineteen fifty seven, 331 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:23.039 a children's float, crape wrapped and festuned in sun floras, 332 00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:26.080 rolling past a corner stone I passed daily. There was 333 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:28.960 a photo caption young Philip by between Henry and James 334 00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:32.759 En celebrating Maple Founder's Day. The grainy image was cropped 335 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:34.879 to fit the narrow page, but the child front right, 336 00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:37.559 glasses slipping down, a small nose, hair carrying a stubborn 337 00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:40.919 licklot moral like me than coincidence would allow. I examined 338 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.279 the faces of the two boys at my side. The 339 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:46.480 names meant nothing. Henry ann James wre not classmates, I remembered, 340 00:16:47.039 --> 00:16:49.919 but the feeling was powerful, at pulsing half formed familiardi, 341 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:52.080 more like the send of a childhood lunch books than 342 00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:54.320 a name. I held the image at to Missus and 343 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:56.879 g at the crosswood spinner, who's quinted and declared he 344 00:16:56.960 --> 00:16:59.440 looked like your father there, Philip, But I don't remember 345 00:16:59.480 --> 00:17:02.399 any founders Day parade? Was this before my time? Her 346 00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:06.799 tone was gentle, almost indulgent. Missus Dossover drifted over we 347 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:09.359 had buried in the fifties and sixties. Sure, mostly for 348 00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:12.039 the school and sometimes Halloween, but never in that direction. 349 00:17:12.599 --> 00:17:15.200 He peered closer at the float and said, some flowers. 350 00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:17.119 I thought that stretch was always rock garden in an 351 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:21.279 empty field. Helen, when she visited later, was quietly fascinated 352 00:17:21.319 --> 00:17:23.839 and amuse. It feels familiar, though, doesn't it? But I 353 00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:25.839 would have bet plenty that no found as they parade 354 00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:28.680 ever passed down Mibble Lane. The more I compared notes, 355 00:17:28.680 --> 00:17:30.799 the more apparent it became that the anomaly was personal 356 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:33.759 and so short. Once books from the sale table referenced 357 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:35.720 events for which even those present in the shock could 358 00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:38.640 find no independent recall. Yet the photographs, unless had a 359 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:42.079 certain plausibility, never at landish, always within the boundaries of 360 00:17:42.119 --> 00:17:44.480 what might have been. I sat late into that night, 361 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:47.359 leafing through my note book. It occurred to me perhaps 362 00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:50.200 the sale table wasn't merely surfacing for garden recos, but 363 00:17:50.279 --> 00:17:52.839 manifest in GAP's whole histories that guarded all lost, not 364 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:54.440 in arch house, but in the ebb and fall of 365 00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:58.359 community memory. The differences in handwriting, the physical oddities the 366 00:17:58.359 --> 00:18:00.799 personal notes all suggested a mechan is a more creative 367 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:04.279 than mere misfiling a memories leap point, a scribble book 368 00:18:04.279 --> 00:18:08.319 summoned from the spaces between certainty and possibility. From that realization, 369 00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:11.440 the mystery changed color. It wasn't simply about keeping a 370 00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:14.599 running tally of oddities or collecting every title for comparison. 371 00:18:15.079 --> 00:18:17.359 It was about mapping a living shifting border, the edge 372 00:18:17.359 --> 00:18:20.759 where memory fades into the unclaim. There never was systematic 373 00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:24.720 observation took over. I arrived every Tuesday, sometimes slipping in 374 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:26.759 on an extra Thursday or Saturday to catch the table 375 00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:30.319 in a different cycle. I recorded the table's inventory at opening, 376 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.839 noted any new arrivals or adjustments to the display, and 377 00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:35.599 counted the volumes of closing. Though Endel was always quick 378 00:18:35.599 --> 00:18:38.799 to clear up after dusk, I tempted gently to keep 379 00:18:38.799 --> 00:18:41.759 books in place, subtly marking a volume's orientation in relation 380 00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:43.799 to the chair nearest the window, just in case there 381 00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:46.519 was some magical rotation or anonymous browser at work behind 382 00:18:46.519 --> 00:18:51.359 the scenes. Cross several weeks, patterns emerged. Titles always changed 383 00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:54.079 the first morning of each week, just after the shop unlocked, 384 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:56.680 as if by invisible appointment. Never did a sea end 385 00:18:56.759 --> 00:18:59.079 or anyone else physically rearrange or a stop. The table 386 00:18:59.519 --> 00:19:02.200 book some times lingered for two even three weeks, but 387 00:19:02.279 --> 00:19:05.680 subsequent offerings never repeated close together. Each was a fresh incursion, 388 00:19:05.880 --> 00:19:09.240 or perhaps reclamation from on saint shelves. Some volumes were 389 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:12.519 wholly ordinary attacks guide from the seventies, a Handbcoon, Dog Breeds, 390 00:19:12.519 --> 00:19:15.440 a romance novel, but even these, on close reading, displayed 391 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:19.319 small corrections. A passage from a gardening manual described southern 392 00:19:19.319 --> 00:19:22.400 exposure windows in nearby houses I was sure had never existed. 393 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:25.799 A cooper contained a recipe attributed to non Aglass, a 394 00:19:25.799 --> 00:19:28.880 neighbor I remembered from school days, but occasion for its inclusion, 395 00:19:28.920 --> 00:19:31.319 though Glass Family Bike Off nineteen eighty three was absent 396 00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:34.960 from all family newsletters or city history. Another book annotated 397 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:37.640 the winner of the Chamber of Commerce's Best store Front contest, 398 00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:40.680 setting a florist, who I learned after vigorous inquiry, had 399 00:19:40.680 --> 00:19:44.000 never quite passed the planning board. I tried, as delicately 400 00:19:44.039 --> 00:19:46.200 as I could to draw ener into a conversation about 401 00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:48.400