WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:08.359 Retirement didn't take exactly the way I'd imagined. This a 2 00:00:08.359 --> 00:00:11.480 peculiar momentum after a decade spent matching barkoads to titles 3 00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:13.960 and reading returns for mold and marginalia. That leaves a 4 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:17.519 residue of alertness. The reflux to notice mismatches as subject 5 00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:19.359 shelf ro on a date out of order, The sneaky 6 00:00:19.359 --> 00:00:21.879 spread of encountered dust. It didn't subside even when I 7 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:24.280 traded my library stuff badge for the authority free lane 8 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:27.440 out of a volunteer at the Saint Agnes County Historical Society. 9 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:32.079 If anything, the habit intensified life, I suppose needs sorting. 10 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:35.439 Wednesday morning, the old Courthouse's brick walls leaked light through 11 00:00:35.479 --> 00:00:39.240 tall windows, sparse, unhesitaned as breath before dawn. Heritage Room 12 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:43.200 two smelled as ever boiled wood and overlooked projects, cardboard 13 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:46.880 artifact boxes closeted on tables and above, airplane wire, suspended, 14 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:50.119 faded bunting, and last year's by contest banner. This was 15 00:00:50.119 --> 00:00:52.920 my eleventh volunteer shift, and the routine should have felt familiar. 16 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:57.039 Logged the session update, the spreadsheets, ganishelves worth of pamphlets, instead. 17 00:00:57.159 --> 00:00:59.280 By the time I shoved off my coat, some energy, 18 00:00:59.399 --> 00:01:02.439 some prick of anticipation, had stolen in. It might have 19 00:01:02.479 --> 00:01:04.719 been the chill, or the light slanting differently after a 20 00:01:04.719 --> 00:01:07.079 cleaning woman switched out the thridber curtains. But I looked 21 00:01:07.159 --> 00:01:09.799 up and noticed, in a murky corner between filing cabinets 22 00:01:09.799 --> 00:01:12.000 and the map display, a new or at least newly 23 00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:15.719 visible presents a tall, old wooden bookcase deeper than the 24 00:01:15.719 --> 00:01:19.200 standard isshuokm bookshels elsewhere in the room, not massive, but 25 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:21.719 compact and dense, like a deliberate punctuation mark in a 26 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:24.959 sentence written by someone else. I still remember that first 27 00:01:24.959 --> 00:01:27.239 walk toward it. The other shell stood out in a 28 00:01:27.239 --> 00:01:30.920 practical uniform honey brown Canti issued mass machined with those 29 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:34.319 little metallic shelf number plates. This one was darker, it 30 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:37.040 so extained almost onyx, the sheen a little dauber breathing. 31 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:40.439 The corners were sculpted into foliage, a canthus and ashleaves, 32 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:42.519 I thought, though I'm no botanist, And the low half 33 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:46.000 featured a repeating pattern of three interlink loops. Feet were 34 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:49.280 lines pause. The formality of all that detail in this 35 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:52.120 modest rural archive was like finding an oil painting in 36 00:01:52.159 --> 00:01:54.959 a class room thrift store. What caught me longer than 37 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:57.760 the carvings were the contents. The shells bowed and a 38 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:00.680 bat of ledgers with spine label's cream cottaged think not 39 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:03.400 the pressed and glued ones made by our printer. The 40 00:02:03.480 --> 00:02:06.599 handwriting was a looping or cake's gript, sweeping flourishes, intersecting 41 00:02:06.680 --> 00:02:10.520 letters in ways I didn't recognize. Photographs leaned against the books, 42 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:13.719 seepy group portraits of picnickers, of rivers at sparkling, abanced 43 00:02:13.719 --> 00:02:16.479 and at dusk, blurred, as if the photograph itself remembered dancing. 44 00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:19.639 There were maps, brittle and faint blue, one corner peeking 45 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:23.159 from beneath a velvet covered album, a pair of handstitch diaries, 46 00:02:23.199 --> 00:02:26.319 spine scuff soft. Some of the items looked familiar, at 47 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:29.039 least in type, yet the style was subtly. Often it 48 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.319 arranged in European order, infaded to oard, orange signatures, and 49 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:35.680 left handed or half erased. I crouched fingers brushing just 50 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:37.919 off the upper left shelf, careful not to crack the 51 00:02:37.960 --> 00:02:42.560 margin edge. Each of these curiosities I thought was likely uncataloged. 52 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:45.840 I flagged it in my inventory notebook Tolkhov shelf as 53 00:02:45.919 --> 00:02:48.800 corner odd hand labeled items, not a week nine shelflest 54 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:51.719 and planned to check the accession logs after lunch. A 55 00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:55.400 hesitation lingered. It was almost embarrassing. I had been here 56 00:02:55.439 --> 00:02:57.759 on and off for three months, and somehow ever noticed 57 00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:00.000 this thing standing in plain side, loaded with what appear 58 00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:03.479 to be important, unique materials. I pressed my palm against 59 00:03:03.479 --> 00:03:08.479 the shelf's edge, colth solid, not new, certainly not recently delivered. 60 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:11.319 The dust on the topmast ledges was thick and disturbed, 61 00:03:11.439 --> 00:03:14.240 gritting under my fingers. So why the feeling I'd missed 62 00:03:14.240 --> 00:03:17.439 it entirely before? Why would his materials absent from the 63 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:21.080 digital catalog? I made a second neither note when did 64 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:24.280 this shelf arrive? Just then me a call from the scanner, 65 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:26.879 breaking the spell. The rest of the room buzzed with 66 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.120 ordinary volunteer chatter, cocooning me with the reassurance of routine. 67 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:34.199 I slid my inventory notebookshut still as I joined the others. 68 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:36.879 It was hard not to glance back, checking, half hopeful, 69 00:03:37.039 --> 00:03:39.199 half skeptical that the extra shelf would still be waiting 70 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:42.319 when I returned archives in this town. I stitched to 71 00:03:42.319 --> 00:03:44.800 people as much as paper. I signed in at the 72 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:46.919 batted car table. Miss Ray keeps as her post to 73 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:49.199 point of both pride and control, as she never quite 74 00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:52.400 trusted the silver based system for tank keeping. Missus Ray 75 00:03:52.439 --> 00:03:54.479 hair a cloud of careful white added my legging pen 76 00:03:55.159 --> 00:03:58.319 lost in the must She teased, just had a surprise 77 00:03:58.360 --> 00:04:00.960 in the south Coroner, I replied, ditching my tone casual. 78 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:03.639 There's an old shelf, I swear I haven't seen before. 79 00:04:03.639 --> 00:04:07.439 It's got some odd ledges. Missess raycenorded, adjusting her reading 80 00:04:07.479 --> 00:04:10.400 glasses with an impatient thumb. There are always out shells 81 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:12.439 and ledges looking in here. You'll go mad trying to 82 00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:16.240 remember each one. Paul, the retired postmassir rumpled, cheerful, and 83 00:04:16.319 --> 00:04:18.759 came of the mail order recu grind over his coffee. 84 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:22.240 I've discovered the secret treasure at al careful, oh, Missess Rael, 85 00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:25.240 have ye scraping cottons in the attic? Next? He sipped 86 00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:28.720 ice twinkling. Maybe it's just one of the Courthouse's movie 87 00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:31.680 shells echoes every other room in his place, As Emma legends, 88 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:35.199 square foot me at younger by decades offered a softer laugh. 89 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:38.240 She was already loaded new photos from a batted Manila 90 00:04:38.279 --> 00:04:41.399 folder into the high speeds ganner. I don't remember seeing 91 00:04:41.399 --> 00:04:44.000 a new shelf, but there's always something sliding around in here. 92 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:47.160 I think the whole place rearranges while we sleep. Routine 93 00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:49.920 elsewhere wins by Attrician, the hymn of warring fans for 94 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:52.639 recent lights, the soft hiccops of an aging d humidifire. 95 00:04:53.319 --> 00:04:55.720 I may coffee in the little kitchen chatting about Paul's 96 00:04:55.759 --> 00:04:57.800 lost box of sea and O railway logs. Than me 97 00:04:57.920 --> 00:04:59.680 is hoped to make a digital now and then slide 98 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:02.759 show of stoferns. Yet I found myself watching my fellow 99 00:05:02.839 --> 00:05:06.079 volunteers as much as listening with Cess Rey, never far 100 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:08.720 from the genealogy corner, protected a her shelf for family 101 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:11.199 bibles like a dragon dis gold, But she seemed entirely 102 00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:15.680 unconcerned about my supposed discovery. Paul, sometimes forgetful but methodical, 103 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:18.800 shrugged any curiosity about new old furniture off with jokes. 104 00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:21.240 I waited for some one to mention seeing the odd 105 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:23.639 kive shelf, but if they had ever noticed it, they 106 00:05:23.639 --> 00:05:26.600 didn't say. Even when I circled back. The labels are 107 00:05:26.639 --> 00:05:28.839 all handritten. Ye, sure we haven't missed a batch of 108 00:05:28.839 --> 00:05:31.680 accessions to Paul just shrugged again. Could be we boxed 109 00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:33.680 up for the court house move in sixteen nine and 110 00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:35.720 at got impact late, or it always sat in that 111 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:38.920 corner and know whatever dusted his eyes trinkled, but this 112 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:41.399 time with calculation, as if proving for a trick behind 113 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:44.040 my question rather than solution. It made me want to 114 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:46.480 prove for myself as much as them that forgetting details 115 00:05:46.519 --> 00:05:50.000 was in some universal malady. I prided myself on inventory. 116 00:05:50.519 --> 00:05:52.519 I knew over shelf in the main reading room by heart, 117 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:55.519 yet the extra shelf's presence destowed the gentle narrative that 118 00:05:55.560 --> 00:05:58.800 a diligent volunteer could make history a complete I scribbled 119 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:01.319 a check old photos of room layout into a new page, 120 00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:05.680 living curiosity in alongside duty. That afternoon, I set to inventory. 121 00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:09.319 My goal aligned the digital catalog with real shelf contents 122 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:12.800 section by section, approved, delete or mark for further research. 123 00:06:13.519 --> 00:06:15.600 An hour into the routine, I looked back to the 124 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:19.279 corner and faced the carve shelfs quarely. I cataloged methodically, 125 00:06:19.920 --> 00:06:23.279 first the ledgers, one brown cloth band spine faded but 126 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:26.079 strong meetings nineteen o twen nineteen twenty three pen in 127 00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:29.560 the lupient decant. Next an album photograph album, half its 128 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:32.639 images stuck together at the gold trim, smoky with age. 129 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:35.199 Item after item, A slend diary marked to bring nineteen 130 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:38.279 nineteen e I'll a folded hand drawn map labels, proposed 131 00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:40.639 expansion main to maple, A bundle of thin programs for 132 00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:43.399 annual May Day on the River. None of these appeared 133 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:45.720 in the physical shelf inventories for reading them too, nor 134 00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:48.240 could I link them to accession numbers in the digital database. 135 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:51.720 I ran title searches for keywords, checked the older accession 136 00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:54.399 cars stored in draws, and cross reference to half dozen 137 00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:57.920 spreadsheet back ups. The shelf as furniture didn't exist in 138 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.439 the space assignment locks, none of its content tinz pinged 139 00:07:00.439 --> 00:07:04.720 against the vast CSV of county artifacts. It was only 140 00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:07.720 when I started looking for specific namesay Fergus A. Danston 141 00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:10.560 repeatedly listed as chairman in the meeting register, A Dorothy 142 00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:13.439 vandamer as secretary, A paanfret Epworth Band among the photo 143 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:16.959 captions that thins turn stranger. These names were absent from 144 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:20.279 every published town sent as scoorein inm booklet or orbituarialist, 145 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:24.120 I could pull the ledgers described regular meetings, sometimes heated 146 00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:26.680 debates about everything from zone into a new school has site, 147 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:28.920 but there was no record elsewhere that such committee work 148 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:32.160 took place. I tried to enter these new items into 149 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:35.240 the system as protcoll demanded and assigned possible local colob 150 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:39.160 Porcific Group nineteen hundred nineteen thirty, but nothing stuck. For long. 151 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:43.279 Each edition felt provisional names drifting uncertainly, as if resisting 152 00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:47.240 digital residency. Sometimes when I in predate or name and 153 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:49.480 cross check for parallels in the official town history at 154 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:51.399 three inch thick volume on the corner table, all I 155 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:54.560 found were blanks or sometimes neomisses names just the letter 156 00:07:54.639 --> 00:07:57.639 or two different Fergus becomes a Ferrus adrothy Vandamer becomes 157 00:07:57.639 --> 00:08:01.319 a vandermen Dora born in a different decade. Midway through 158 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:03.480 my note taking, Mere floated by with a fresh folder 159 00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:06.519 of photos. She peered over my shoulder at the shelf, 160 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:09.519 chewing her lip. Is that new? Maybe it was just directed, 161 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:11.920 And while we were all out at lunch, she tapped 162 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:14.279 the shelf'snarer's foot with her toe, leaving a faint desperant. 163 00:08:14.759 --> 00:08:18.000 Looks like it's been here since I dunno prohibition might 164 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.240 have sat in storage, Paul called from the window. But 165 00:08:20.279 --> 00:08:22.279 if so, no one told me about it. We had 166 00:08:22.279 --> 00:08:24.360 no place to put anything new back here for years. 167 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.920 Their comments felt both plausible and dissatisfying, as if an 168 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:30.279 ordinary fog had thickened just enough to keep any answer 169 00:08:30.279 --> 00:08:33.720 out of reach. I crouched lower, long stinging faintly from 170 00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:36.279 the muss, squinting at the ankles of the shelf. This 171 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:38.559 was packed and a stout, not the pattern you'd expect 172 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:40.799 if it had been shuffled in last week. It was 173 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:42.720 a small thing, not a goo's, not a trick of 174 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:44.240 the light, but the first crack in my sense of 175 00:08:44.279 --> 00:08:48.120 the archives is a sealed and accounted for world. Not fear, exactly, 176 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:49.600 but a prickle, like the one you get when a 177 00:08:49.679 --> 00:08:52.440 tune seems to remember its ending before you do. I 178 00:08:52.519 --> 00:08:56.320 decided the only solution was to pursuit further unofficially. After 179 00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:58.840 the others left that afternoon, I'd opened my notebook wider, 180 00:08:58.919 --> 00:09:01.919 filling a page with the list titled extra Shelf Contents Anomalies. 181 00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:04.720 It was a meager hedge against humility, but it steadied 182 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:08.080 my hands. I had the sudden, exhilarating sense that something 183 00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:11.960 about the shelf didn't merely need cataloging, It needed investigating. Thursday, 184 00:09:12.039 --> 00:09:14.679 I arrived early, before the building's old radiators had settled 185 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:17.519 into their TikTok song. I went straight to the corner. 186 00:09:17.559 --> 00:09:20.639 The shelf was unexpectedly flush against the north wall, now 187 00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:24.559 where the genealogical indexes waited in the neat rows yesterday. 188 00:09:24.639 --> 00:09:26.639 I felt certain it had been by the map display 189 00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:30.519 two yards away. A strange lapse, But well volunteers were 190 00:09:30.519 --> 00:09:32.919 forever jost into clear force space. Maybe masss Ray had 191 00:09:32.919 --> 00:09:34.799 scooted it, or Mea had moved it to chase an 192 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:38.039 extension court. Still, there was a peculiar discomfort to the 193 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:40.039 way it filled the space, as if it had always 194 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:42.519 belonged wherever I found it, yet did not quite fit. 195 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:47.320 I redoubled my focus. The photographs drew me. One depicted 196 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:49.679 the old brick Presbyterian church, but the steeple was far 197 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:51.840 taller and crowned in a Gothic cross, not the squat 198 00:09:51.879 --> 00:09:53.759 Balfrey top by a plain rooster we see to day. 199 00:09:54.399 --> 00:09:57.600 Another showed an expanse of water, a river wide, slow unmistakable, 200 00:09:57.639 --> 00:09:59.759 but behind it rose the facades of main streets, blocking 201 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:03.240 it with century storefronts places. No river runs to day. A 202 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:06.320 diary page, water stained but legible, narrated the day of 203 00:10:06.360 --> 00:10:08.759 the May Day Festival at Riverview, ribbons, music and a 204 00:10:08.759 --> 00:10:11.519 parade of lanterns by the plank bridge. I checked the 205 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:14.679 room for a companion volume or city record. The town's 206 00:10:14.720 --> 00:10:18.399 festival history was robust octoberfice county fairs, even a strawberry 207 00:10:18.480 --> 00:10:20.840 Jamberie during the war, but never anything in spring, and 208 00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:24.480 certainly not a river festival. Seeking tangible comparison, a cold 209 00:10:24.519 --> 00:10:27.879 massss ray over during her coffee break. Recognize this, fellow, 210 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:30.480 I asked, Holding up a seepy photograph of a man 211 00:10:30.519 --> 00:10:32.840 in a striped summer suit standing beneath a willow beside 212 00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:37.080 a footbridge. Massess rays quinted, shaking her head slowly. He's 213 00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:39.320 he looks vainly like my uncle Walt, but thinner in 214 00:10:39.320 --> 00:10:41.480 the face. Is he wearing a campaign ribbon? I can't 215 00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:44.519 read that. She pitched the photo back into my hand, bothered. 216 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:47.600 You know how diesel plates blend together town faces. We 217 00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:50.120 all have a box of ringers in the attic. Paul 218 00:10:50.279 --> 00:10:52.440 hearing the tail end of this, plopped the town's voting 219 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:55.679 register beside me, trailing optimism like a detective with a clue. 220 00:10:56.440 --> 00:10:59.080 What was his name again, Graham? I think from the 221 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:02.720 caption first initial b B. Graham mayroll candidate Spring twenty four. 222 00:11:03.360 --> 00:11:06.559 Paul's fingers laid down the colum of voters. Not here 223 00:11:06.679 --> 00:11:09.639 incumbent was O'Mally in twenty four and no challenge or file. 224 00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:12.399 At least that's what the paper said. Maybe Graham ran 225 00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:15.360 in the next town over. Mia shuffled through some digitized 226 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:18.960 images on her screen, verily glancing up that girl by 227 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:20.559 the water in the little dress. She looks like my 228 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:22.480 cousin Abby did as a kid, sort of, But all 229 00:11:22.519 --> 00:11:25.000 toddlers from then looked the same, right with they dressed 230 00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:28.279 up for a river that's missing. Three interviews, three dead ends, 231 00:11:28.279 --> 00:11:30.039 but with the flavor of the familiar about them, each 232 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:32.879 teasing that ordinary explanations were near, but always out of reach. 233 00:11:33.639 --> 00:11:37.480 No direct confirmation, but no outrecte denial either. I handled 234 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:40.960 the photograph, starting the background for landmarks there at the 235 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:44.879 Tobacconists sign. Yes, but what was that bridge doing there? 236 00:11:45.440 --> 00:11:47.759 I moved to the maps, running my hands lightly over 237 00:11:47.799 --> 00:11:51.600 the surfaces. One dated a drawn April nineteen nineteen proposed 238 00:11:51.639 --> 00:11:54.000 bridge showed the thick blue line cutting through main Street 239 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:56.080 and split it into side roads where to day blocks 240 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:58.919 of Hard West stores and the pharmacy now stood. There 241 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:01.000 was no river to day, nor had there been in 242 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:03.320 any map or aerial photograph I'd seen going back to 243 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:06.559 the w PA years, But some old timers still mentioned 244 00:12:06.559 --> 00:12:09.440 a dry dip, slightly sloping lawns, and odd fancy quirks 245 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:12.799 with no agreed origin. I flipped a commemorative program describing 246 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:16.039 the decisive mayoral election nineteen twenty four with two names, 247 00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:20.240 o'mali and Graham. Speeches, a parade, even platforms about handling 248 00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:23.080 the flood risk. Yet all the town recos and the 249 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.720 local Ustiper microfiche agree. Nineteen twenty four was non election 250 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:29.720 year set aside due to lack of opposition. There had 251 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:32.600 never been a candidate Graham Act. At my work station. 252 00:12:32.759 --> 00:12:34.840 I made notes of every anomaly, but the act seemed 253 00:12:34.840 --> 00:12:38.600 to dissolve certainty rather than collesse strangers. Still, as I wrote, 254 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:40.759 certain names began to slip from memory, vague, until I 255 00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:43.279 were read them from my own page without constant reference. 256 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:47.720 The details fogged over. I experimented closing my eyes recreating 257 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:51.360 the name sequence allowed. Sometimes they snapped back, but only 258 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:54.519 when spoken, not when I pictured them. Images faded too, 259 00:12:54.639 --> 00:12:56.159 but only for a moment, as if they were a 260 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:59.639 draft at my shoulder, snatching thoughts away. That evening, before 261 00:12:59.679 --> 00:13:01.879 locking up, I brought my questions back to the others. 262 00:13:02.519 --> 00:13:05.919 May had started uploading photo scans. I'm beginning to think 263 00:13:05.960 --> 00:13:07.639 some one went to a lot of sad trouble making 264 00:13:07.639 --> 00:13:10.799 prop records, I said experimentally. I did any one on 265 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:13.399 local council ever run a festival by the river or 266 00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:17.039 is that a running droke Michigan head. If they did, 267 00:13:17.159 --> 00:13:19.080 it's news to me. But I know the oral histories 268 00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:21.440 mentioned a drop once. I'll check the tape locks at home, 269 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:24.159 see if anyone tells flood stories of those interview reunions. 270 00:13:24.159 --> 00:13:26.759 My grandma used to tell strange one about setting candles 271 00:13:26.759 --> 00:13:28.799 on the water. We always figured she was thinking of 272 00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:31.600 the land and parade dance. Dat Paul, returning from a 273 00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:35.120 trip to the filing cabinet shrugged. People want their stories tidy, 274 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:37.480 but there are goups everywhere. My own sister and sists 275 00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:39.679 our house used to have a seller, no evidence of one. 276 00:13:39.720 --> 00:13:42.840 Now things come and go. The contradictions were piling up, 277 00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:45.759 forcing a change in angle. That night, I sat in 278 00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:47.759 my dining room with a mug of slightly burnt tea, 279 00:13:47.799 --> 00:13:50.399 lining up every oddity. What if the town once looked different? 280 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:53.879 Was this a forgotten plan, a dream, a prank with 281 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.480 the ledgers and photographs, laborary forgeries compiled fir school play 282 00:13:57.559 --> 00:14:01.559 or centennial celebration since miss fold. But forgeries never last 283 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:04.039 this long, or dust up so well, And the way 284 00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:07.039 the memory comes slipped away so easily? Why only certain details, 285 00:14:07.240 --> 00:14:10.960 and only from these particular records? Friday I changed tactics. 286 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:13.720 Instead of only searching for confirmations, proof that these events 287 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:16.480 and people had existed, I hunted for overlaps, places where 288 00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:19.440 the shelf shadow crossed into the official town story. The 289 00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:23.519 genealogical records, for instance, often listed family lines with missing years, 290 00:14:23.559 --> 00:14:26.399 unexplained moves, or children born midway through the war, though 291 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:29.559 no one are called specifics. In one shelf diary, I 292 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:31.879 found an entry for Edward Seaborne during the high Water 293 00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:35.279 mother rescued by Neapro's scafe, christened at Riverview. The county 294 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:37.480 birth indics for that year escaped from March to June 295 00:14:37.519 --> 00:14:40.919 with a compression of unaccounted for names. In another instance, 296 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:43.639 an obituary from Missess Maaud Benson, appearing in a shelf 297 00:14:43.639 --> 00:14:46.000 list of flier never made it to the main newspaper, 298 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:48.480 but in the town's death registry her name was crossed 299 00:14:48.480 --> 00:14:51.240 out and replaced with the sea file. The more I tracked, 300 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:53.399 the more something odd became clear. Not only withou the 301 00:14:53.399 --> 00:14:57.480 shelf document referentially complete, listing names, dates, events, and even 302 00:14:57.559 --> 00:14:59.759 routines as if they fully happened. But wherever a shelf 303 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:02.559 name or event appeared near officially, the connection was ambiguous, 304 00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:05.720 quickly mudded by missing forms, mudged ink or misfiled cards. 305 00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:08.120 I described this to Mia over a coffee in the 306 00:15:08.159 --> 00:15:11.000 little breakroom, showing her a spray of copper pages. She 307 00:15:11.159 --> 00:15:14.399 leaned in and as bright, what if these are like drafts, 308 00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:17.240 not forgeries? But I don't know different versions. Don't you 309 00:15:17.240 --> 00:15:19.279 ever dream that things could have gone differently? I used 310 00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:21.279 to imagine we had a bridge too when I was 311 00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:23.240 a kid, and half the time the stories my aunt 312 00:15:23.240 --> 00:15:26.120 told didn't line up with anyone else's version. Her voice, 313 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:29.320 soft but insistent, made me pause. The drafts of what 314 00:15:29.720 --> 00:15:34.320 history or memory? She said, maybe stories people half started 315 00:15:34.440 --> 00:15:36.759 or gave up still linger somewhere, especially when a whole 316 00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:40.240 town tries to forget something. I scuffed, But that night, 317 00:15:40.440 --> 00:15:43.039 sorting my pages for the hundredth time, her theory soldered 318 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:45.960 itself to my mind. I gave up trying to prove 319 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:50.879 the shelfter catalogs. Instead I met the divergences. One legal 320 00:15:50.919 --> 00:15:53.039 deed found in a box beneath the shelf listed a 321 00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:55.360 property line marked at the riverbank post and a year 322 00:15:55.440 --> 00:15:58.440 no river had ever run there. Another a memorandum of 323 00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:00.840 a tan budget circle ow into bridge toll receipts from 324 00:16:00.919 --> 00:16:04.679 nineteen twenty five. I began sketching out parallel timelines, the 325 00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:07.600 official one and the ghost one encoded in shelf documents. 326 00:16:08.200 --> 00:16:10.679 By Saturday, I was no longer content to explain the 327 00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:13.759 shelf away as Missweling or mass forgetting something in these 328 00:16:13.759 --> 00:16:16.039 records refused to be fitted neatly into any one version 329 00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:18.240 of reality. And the way those records blowd even as 330 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:20.639 I tried to pin them down, only made my fascination deeper. 331 00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:23.519 On Monday, I decided to see if the shelf moved 332 00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:27.080 as erratically as I'd suspected. I arrived an hour before opening, 333 00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:29.639 careful to note where every other piece of furniture sat. 334 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:32.360 The shelf to day hugged the table, worm me a 335 00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:36.159 spread old photographs. Her digitizer were whirring quietly. No marks 336 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:38.320 on the floor from dragging, no dust pattern I could 337 00:16:38.320 --> 00:16:41.080 blame for recent movement. But there it sat, unmistakably in you, 338 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:44.480 as if it had anticipated our project focus. I watched 339 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:47.759 from a safer move as the volunteers filtered in. Missus Frey, 340 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:50.039 sighing at the extra bodies, made a show of stacking 341 00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:53.600 genealogy folders near the chef's current perch. Paul wandered by 342 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:58.000 reading aloud fragments from a church register. Conversation turned, as 343 00:16:58.000 --> 00:16:59.759 it often did, to the missing years, those hard to 344 00:16:59.799 --> 00:17:03.200 tree periods in certain family trees of eternal club membership rolls. 345 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:07.599 The room buzzed with casual jokes about vanishing relatives. I watched, 346 00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:10.119 mind racing was the shelter on somehow to the spot 347 00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:13.240 of greatest mental attention? Did our focus nudget or did 348 00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:16.759 its presence nudge our thoughts? I began collecting every instance 349 00:17:16.799 --> 00:17:19.279 where the shelf's ghost people or events nearly aligned with 350 00:17:19.319 --> 00:17:21.759 official gaps about wedged in a census year, but no 351 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:24.200 christening record, and no obituary that appeared in the shelf 352 00:17:24.279 --> 00:17:26.960 printed program but not in church annals of families name 353 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:30.799 changing by a single consonant. I compared headlines. Shelf newsprint 354 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:33.519 described a disastrous flood in late spring nineteen twenty four, 355 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:36.440 with accounts of Tansford manning sandbergs and sheltering neighbors, a 356 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:39.079 story with no match in the microfilm editions kept behind 357 00:17:39.079 --> 00:17:42.960 Massessory's desk, but in certain oral history transcripts, I noticed 358 00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:45.319 a displacement. A woman name Corus spoke of wading out 359 00:17:45.359 --> 00:17:47.519 to the porch to float the lanterns, attributing it to 360 00:17:47.559 --> 00:17:51.400 a stormyared she sought happened to Dunriver in Selina. Curiosity 361 00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:54.079 now thoroughly at weighing skepticism. I met with Mia later 362 00:17:54.079 --> 00:17:57.119 in the week. Enthusiasm allied in her. She brought a 363 00:17:57.119 --> 00:17:59.839 stack of her grandmother's old set tape memories, eager to 364 00:17:59.839 --> 00:18:02.720 see what might overlap. We sat late into the even 365 00:18:02.759 --> 00:18:05.759 cross referencing my curfilm with progum clippings and diary dates. 366 00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:08.440 I began to see the shelf not as an anomaly 367 00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:10.799 waiting to be erased, but as a narrative thread running 368 00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:13.720 perpendicular to the one I had trusted my whole professional life, 369 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:17.799 the idea lodged itself. I wasn't just missing information. I 370 00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:19.920 was standing at the edge of a slip stream, looking 371 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:23.000 into an alternate layered narrative beneath of official story, woven 372 00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:27.519 of half lived memories, commune almost impossible lives. Finally on 373 00:18:27.559 --> 00:18:30.079 a spring Sunday mire, and I decided not to wait 374 00:18:30.119 --> 00:18:34.119 for confirmatory paperwork or distilledgers. We took our note copies 375 00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:36.440 of footo pages, and a tape measure and walked the 376 00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:39.480 blocks behind Main Street, searching for any anomalous physical trays. 377 00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:42.680 At the edge of a low, grassy slope behind the pharmacy, 378 00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:45.279 we found a series of broken stone pillars, half buried 379 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:48.799 and sowed the spacing mash almost in kenney, the proportions 380 00:18:48.799 --> 00:18:51.680 of a bridge's abutments between them. The grass thin to 381 00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:53.920 or shallow depression, though dry dip that old time has 382 00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:57.440 called the boat lane. We paced its length. I tried 383 00:18:57.440 --> 00:18:59.880 to recall the map's measurements from the shelf superposed on 384 00:18:59.880 --> 00:19:03.599 the modern street grid. The match was in exact yet convincing. 385 00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:07.240 We heighted the historical society later that afternoon, excitement fizzing 386 00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:10.359 beneath our fatigue. Returning to the shelf, we found it 387 00:19:10.359 --> 00:19:12.880 impossibly sitting adjacent to the window dock of where Paul 388 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:15.759 was engrossed in old road commissioned documents, right where days 389 00:19:15.799 --> 00:19:19.000 before our conversations had centered on lost roads and erased bridges. 390 00:19:19.640 --> 00:19:21.839 That evening, me and I tried to record an account 391 00:19:21.839 --> 00:19:24.400 of our findings, but the equipment sputted into static whenever 392 00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:27.640 we reached olf entries aloud. Our written notes too, blurred 393 00:19:27.640 --> 00:19:30.440 in the details, dates became suggestions, names dropped a letter, 394 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:32.640 and just as with the shelf sledges, we had to 395 00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:35.960 read a lotto insequence to keep facts in place. Later 396 00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:39.000 in the week, I visited Missus Callahan, a retired teacher 397 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:40.759 who had lived in ten all her life and prided 398 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:43.480 herself on keeping family lore in the town's social cringe alive. 399 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:46.559 I showed her a shelf photographed children playing along a 400 00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:50.079 river bank, a picnicking full ambiguous son. She watched me, 401 00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:53.759