WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.119 are here, Let's get into it. It began with a 3 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:13.560 faint smell of dust mingled with machine oil ascent, both 4 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:16.480 fragile and metallic, hanging in the low morning light as 5 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:19.800 I let myself into the Yak Bluff History Museum. Mags 6 00:00:19.839 --> 00:00:22.160 must have opened the windows early because the spring air 7 00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:25.239 was unusually sharp, tracing lines along the old hardwood displays 8 00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:26.960 and stirring the corners of the rug that bore so 9 00:00:27.039 --> 00:00:29.839 many she prints from field trip classes and visiting families. 10 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:32.479 This was my third Thursday in her row, reorganizing the 11 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:35.520 newspaper archives, with her task egal past patients and memory 12 00:00:35.640 --> 00:00:38.119 right in my preferred vein. I have always been drawn 13 00:00:38.119 --> 00:00:40.920 to puzzles, even the gentle, harmless kind. At only librarian 14 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:45.439 scene to find indixing, cross listing, rescuing the small daily 15 00:00:45.479 --> 00:00:48.039 evidence of local laws from the oncoming tide of entropy. 16 00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:52.000 There's a satisfaction to rescuing order from decay. Mags Bruskus 17 00:00:52.039 --> 00:00:54.759 always had left out fresh labels and acid free sleeves 18 00:00:54.759 --> 00:00:57.280 beside twin stacks of newsprint, waiting on the wide table 19 00:00:57.320 --> 00:00:59.399 that once stood in the tan reading room. The same 20 00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:02.479 table where it sat for summer afternoons decades ago, reading 21 00:01:02.479 --> 00:01:05.599 aloud while rain drums the windows. You're an angel, letting 22 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:09.079 yourself in Mag's call from the back. Her voice always 23 00:01:09.159 --> 00:01:11.280 rolled in quick, sturdy syllables, a map of the region 24 00:01:11.319 --> 00:01:14.239 in every continant. I murmured something back and slipped into 25 00:01:14.239 --> 00:01:17.159 the rhythm. Unfold check date. Compare masthead with the handwritten 26 00:01:17.239 --> 00:01:20.120 card log into the digital intext sloth and label repeat. 27 00:01:20.719 --> 00:01:23.519 Oak Bluff's local paper, The Valley Sentinel, began in nineteen 28 00:01:23.560 --> 00:01:27.040 o seven, and every decade left us thin typrit in signature. Wars, floods, 29 00:01:27.079 --> 00:01:30.560 births announced with cautious optimism. Not all the papers survived, 30 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:33.640 of course, the humidity under the old buildings thieves had 31 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.159 claimed entire years to time before the museum was built. 32 00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:38.519 Not to mention mice in the natural impatience of time, 33 00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:42.079 but you loan to expect gaps at first. When I 34 00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:44.120 know of his several folders marked missing in the early 35 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:46.560 nineteen forties, I thought nothing of it. It was marked 36 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:48.840 that way on both the handred and causon much later 37 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.319 on the museum's digital finding aid. In nineteen fifty eight, 38 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:54.640 ifire destroyed the back of the publishing offers, and all 39 00:01:54.719 --> 00:01:57.719 the indexes acknowledged this loss. But as I work my 40 00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:00.599 way deeper into the nineteen seventies years, I dimly remembered 41 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:03.560 somewhere between childhood and adolescence, I felt a prickling, half 42 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:06.400 formed filling. There were weeks that should have had newspapers 43 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:09.280 in the file, with nothing but cardboard spacers and unsleeved 44 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:12.639 catalog cards. At first, I flipped through the box for 45 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:15.280 what should have been July of nineteen seventy six, assuming 46 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:18.800 the catalog card misplaced the issue, but the catalog insisted 47 00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:22.800 issue present, three articles featured, photograph listed. I tried the 48 00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:25.479 digital index mixed. Sometimes the old sister would have a 49 00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:28.919 scan even when the original was lost. The record was there, 50 00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:32.520 cheerfully summarizing parade on Main Oak Bluff, Mark's Independence school 51 00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:36.800 Board budget deliberations July rainstorm brings relief. Yet when I 52 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:39.719 clicked on the scan, up came only file not found. 53 00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:42.759 I rechecked the handwritten card, an old one. By the 54 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:45.840 look of the ink almost certainly matches tidy cursor July eight, 55 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:50.360 nineteen seventy six, complete issue shelved. She'd initialed it. I 56 00:02:50.439 --> 00:02:53.039 pulled the next folder from July fifteenth and the next. 57 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:55.919 Each one had a similar story prison in the index, 58 00:02:56.080 --> 00:02:59.039 present in the card, absent on the shelf three weeks 59 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:02.479 in July. The pattern repeated in March nineteen ninety three 60 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.400 late October nineteen ninety seven. The digital entries for each 61 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:09.680 there visible in the search results, but revealing only an 62 00:03:09.719 --> 00:03:12.919 error or empty field when accessed. I've then Maggs had 63 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:15.919 drifted over, carrying a coffee and a new pack of shoppies. 64 00:03:16.520 --> 00:03:19.000 I showed her the empty folders, and she blinked, looked 65 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:21.120 at the catalog, then at the shelf, then back at me. 66 00:03:21.159 --> 00:03:22.960 Her brisk efficiency had worn in me a habit of 67 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:26.280 confidence in paperwork, so her confusion and settled me. That's 68 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:28.719 not right, is it? She muttered. I could swear I 69 00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:31.199 read one of these this issue here July seventy six. 70 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:33.319 I remember the pari because we got rained on and 71 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:36.360 I wrote something about missus Lowkin's hat. Didn't We display 72 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:38.840 the front page on the wall for years, but there 73 00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:42.599 was nothing, no paper, no microfilm, nothing in the museum's 74 00:03:42.599 --> 00:03:45.439 story folders. That's how it started. A gap in a 75 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:48.360 system designed to have no gaps, made more intriguing by 76 00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:50.560 the sense that the system itself insisted that nothing was 77 00:03:50.599 --> 00:03:54.120 missing at all. I'd met, I smiled. Some people chase 78 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:57.960 family genealogies, others bird watching or puzzles. For me, there's 79 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.280 a particular pleasure in chasing a question that's seem to 80 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:03.639 firs more error than anomaly. How could everyone's record agree 81 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:05.759 that something was here? That these issues with their boring 82 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:08.240 local milestones had been checked in catalog, by hand and 83 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:11.719 by computer, and yet nothing physically remained. And why did 84 00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:15.240 Maggs remember reading them if they were gone? Was sheamous remembering? 85 00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:17.439 Or was it possible we'd lost things so quietly even 86 00:04:17.439 --> 00:04:20.319 memory insisted they were whole. There are few places in 87 00:04:20.360 --> 00:04:22.800 the state more protective of small history than Oak Bluff. 88 00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:25.920 In a town of ninety two hundred souls, every cobbel 89 00:04:25.959 --> 00:04:27.759 and corner hos a long memory, or at least a 90 00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:31.079 broad version of one. My own week these days revolves 91 00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:33.839 around a gentle circuit of the museum on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 92 00:04:33.959 --> 00:04:37.120 the library on Wednesdays, but Grubert Grace's cafay Low strolls 93 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:39.399 through the park with its pillow bendstand. Evenings at home 94 00:04:39.439 --> 00:04:41.839 with tea in whichever local history I've borrowed from myself 95 00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:45.199 that month. Most towns museums are half forgotten. Ours is, 96 00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:47.399 in so many ways the closest thing to a living 97 00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:50.720 mind you can visit. Maggs, the curator is the unofficial 98 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:54.360 mayor of memory. Nobody knows which August had floods, which 99 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:57.000 February's brought power outages, or which pies have won the 100 00:04:57.040 --> 00:04:59.759 fair as well as she does. Even Tom, the oldest 101 00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:02.279 ac to volunteer. It defers to a labeling strategy. Though 102 00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:04.839 he claims seniority his days as a reporter and column 103 00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:06.720 is clear in the half admiring, half teasing way he 104 00:05:06.759 --> 00:05:08.839 needles her for hiding all the juicy vials where only 105 00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:12.319 you can find them. Grace meanwhile runs Bouzy Beans on 106 00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:14.839 the southeast corner of the park, twenty four kinds of coffee, 107 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:17.680 plus a community board, so layered with announcements and photographs 108 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:20.319 you could, in principal chartsy level rise by the layers. 109 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:23.800 Her memory matches mine in a different register. Her favorite 110 00:05:23.800 --> 00:05:25.959 stories are told in scone flavors and trays of pastries, 111 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.439 shoe links effortlessly to wedding dates, disasters and minors scandals. 112 00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:31.959 It's a turn that loves its roots, and the arch 113 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:35.199 having of them. Public libraries, town memory shelf for donated diaries, 114 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:37.560 the cafe's wall of news clippings from every decade, the 115 00:05:37.639 --> 00:05:41.480 churches ever expanding ledger of ceremonies and condolences. My own 116 00:05:41.480 --> 00:05:44.160 life is a stack of catalog cards, footnuts, and library 117 00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:47.720 hand I remember the procedures for encoding obsolete g numbers 118 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:51.279 better than large pieces of my personal adolescence, and yet 119 00:05:51.439 --> 00:05:54.199 for that very reason, my own capacity for recal has 120 00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:56.360 a soft edge. A period I know exists laid in 121 00:05:56.399 --> 00:05:59.639 my childhood that's simply untethered. I remember the ship of 122 00:05:59.639 --> 00:06:01.959 the summer, the sweep of days, but not particulars of 123 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.879 a troubled week. Like most people, I attributed it to 124 00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:07.720 normal development, a gap for which the mind makes kindly excuses. 125 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:10.319 So I wouldn't have thought more of these lost papers 126 00:06:10.319 --> 00:06:12.319 if not for the fact that the archives, the computer, 127 00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:14.279 and the shelf all agreed the issue should be there, 128 00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:17.360 not missing, not destroyed, but auditorially present, both referenced to 129 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.839 and physically absent. I suppose the first real contradiction came 130 00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:23.040 when Tom wandered in two hours later, his cane wrapping 131 00:06:23.079 --> 00:06:26.120 out a conversational pace, shoulder square and tea already in hand. 132 00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:28.920 He was as usual at making Max blush with some 133 00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:31.360 half scandalous bif from his reporting days. He'd made a living, 134 00:06:31.399 --> 00:06:34.680 at least in the nineteen seventies, chronicling flood fire and 135 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:37.519 local trivia with equal gravity. He strolled by as I 136 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:40.879 lined up the empty folders from July seventy six, looking 137 00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:44.639 for gosts Ah. He asked, those were wild Sommers. Remember 138 00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:47.399 that rainstorm when the fireworks were canceled and massas Larkin's 139 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:50.759 boy climbed the bandstand roof, singing Davy Crocker. I pointed 140 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:52.680 at the space on the shelf meant for July eighth, 141 00:06:52.759 --> 00:06:55.800 and showed him the error on the database. Tom whistled, 142 00:06:56.360 --> 00:06:58.639 now that's a pickle. I remember reading about the storm, 143 00:06:58.759 --> 00:07:01.240 just the headline brain spoiled parade. Can't forget it the 144 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:03.839 photo have my car floating up Maine? He'd tapped the 145 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:07.600 blank car. Do we have the microfilm? No, of, I said. 146 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:10.519 The index shows the issue is stored, but the film 147 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:13.600 is missing. To magg says she remembers cataloging these editions 148 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:16.240 in ninety seven, but there's no sign of them, Tom 149 00:07:16.279 --> 00:07:19.439 shrugged bralferode. I swear I quoted that issue in a 150 00:07:19.439 --> 00:07:22.279 speech civic league maybe ninety six. Someone's made a hash 151 00:07:22.279 --> 00:07:25.959 of archiving. I checked the library before lunch, walking the 152 00:07:25.959 --> 00:07:29.240 two blocks in spring clarity in a reference room. Old 153 00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:33.160 town council minutes spoiled across beckeld newsprin neighborhood association records 154 00:07:33.199 --> 00:07:36.000 typed in old blue ribbon, stacked high in labor binders. 155 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:39.000 As I pulled the minutes from July nineteen seventy six, 156 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:42.199 I read as reported by the Valley Sentinel July eighth issue, 157 00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:46.199 but here to the trail stops, no quotation, no details, 158 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:48.079 just the reference, as if the very act of citation 159 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:51.560 replaced content in three separate diaries. A rephrase is like 160 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:54.319 a per newspaper bicker in this week, but no further description. 161 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:57.959 I started a notebook more habit than urgency, recording dates, 162 00:07:57.959 --> 00:08:02.120 headlines as listed, file numbers, even nearer messages. Soon I 163 00:08:02.199 --> 00:08:04.800 was sketching a tennine empty spaces, cross assed with reference 164 00:08:04.839 --> 00:08:08.279 after reference, every secondary document, converging on newspapers. No one 165 00:08:08.279 --> 00:08:11.680 could find or quote specifically. The archives. Missing issues became 166 00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:15.560 less an accident and more consensus. Local memory, analog or digital, 167 00:08:15.800 --> 00:08:18.639 seemed to agree that these things existed, while equally agreeing 168 00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:21.439 to withhold the substance. The more people I asked, the 169 00:08:21.480 --> 00:08:24.600 clearer it became Max, whose recall and veil in the 170 00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:26.879 attract every new label for the last decade, swore on 171 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:29.680 her grandmother's recipe, but that she'd read those stories, even 172 00:08:29.720 --> 00:08:33.080 the worn about the school debate over uniforms. Tom's memories 173 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:35.879 applied headline after headline, but never a detail beyond the 174 00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:39.240 most trivial. The town council notes, written by three different 175 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:42.159 secretaries over ten years, relied on the same phantom issues 176 00:08:42.840 --> 00:08:45.279 again and again. I circled back to the same question, 177 00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:48.480 how can so many people and so many documents reference 178 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:52.600 physical newspapers, indicate page numbers, photographs, even reaction letters when 179 00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:56.320 there's nothing there. The contradiction was not an individual forgetfulness, 180 00:08:56.440 --> 00:08:59.279 nor in a disaster that wiped out records. It was 181 00:08:59.320 --> 00:09:01.720 something co ordinately aided, accidental or not off between people, 182 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:05.279 memory and record keeping. A few days later I returned 183 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:08.399 with renewed purpose. I told Max, I want to check 184 00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:11.399 the side collections, scrap books, event files, anything off the 185 00:09:11.480 --> 00:09:14.960 regular shells for those misindates. She nodded as a curator's 186 00:09:15.039 --> 00:09:17.960 version of an open door. The museum's story folders are 187 00:09:17.960 --> 00:09:20.919 glorious mess photocopies of rec league scores, hand type letters 188 00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:23.559 from local maize, a faded certificate naming the nineteen eighty 189 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:26.320 six ok Bluffed Dog of the Year. In theory, every 190 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:28.120 event covered in a paper should yield a ripple in 191 00:09:28.200 --> 00:09:30.720 someone's scrap book and after image of the supposed parades 192 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:33.759 and rainstorms of those blank weeks. But as I dug 193 00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:37.360 each trail receded. One red folder, labeled Fourth of July 194 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:41.159 Parade seventy six offered a single hand scrolled note. Parade 195 00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:44.879 held reigned in the afternoon, community helped clean up, no route, 196 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:49.480 no line up, no floats, listed the letters from attendees, 197 00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:52.240 which for other years rampages thinned out to nothing more. 198 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:55.799 I made blueberry scones for the Fimancy Sentinel coverage. A 199 00:09:55.840 --> 00:09:59.519 photo undeeded featured the band stunning, drizzled, empty, nearly featureless, 200 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:03.080 dated g L eight, nineteen seventy six. At the library, 201 00:10:03.159 --> 00:10:06.799 the yearbooks and neighborhood newsletters were even more elusive. Nineteen 202 00:10:06.840 --> 00:10:10.120 seventy six again was reduced to passing mention great teamwork 203 00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:12.919 in the summer clean up particle and sentinel, no roster, 204 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:17.159 no winners, no drama, chouch bulletin's reference to read a 205 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:19.639 paper for parish up dates, but the calendar was otherwise 206 00:10:19.679 --> 00:10:23.480 blank for those weeks. Next, I thought the cafe. Grace 207 00:10:23.559 --> 00:10:26.159 was arranging her pastry case as I arrived, arguing with 208 00:10:26.200 --> 00:10:28.679 a regular about weather, blueberry or raspberry scone, suit of 209 00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:31.720 rainy weather. I asked about the parade of seventy six. 210 00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:34.080 She snapped her fingers. That's the rain soaked bake sale. 211 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:36.360 I made a hundred scones for the firemen, maybe for 212 00:10:36.360 --> 00:10:38.720 the parade or the clean up. Anyway, it was nuts. 213 00:10:39.320 --> 00:10:41.720 One pressed about the specific's route line up. What else 214 00:10:41.720 --> 00:10:44.240 occuld she blink? It's all a blair. Really, that's when 215 00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:45.840 we all helped at the park. Or was it the 216 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:47.639 summer later? We've got a fororter from one of those 217 00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:50.559 Frenny's cat orange tabby stuck in the bench and rofters 218 00:10:50.639 --> 00:10:54.360 that I remember. She paused, looking for more, But what 219 00:10:54.519 --> 00:10:57.320 else I could swear it was that summer Behind her, 220 00:10:57.399 --> 00:11:00.399 a wall of clippings neatly skipped those dates. At home 221 00:11:00.440 --> 00:11:02.879 that night, I found myself searching my own memory for 222 00:11:02.919 --> 00:11:05.159 that summer, when I would have been about eleven. My 223 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:09.080 mother's diary, which I copied for posterity, simply reads July 224 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:12.039 six minutes twelve busy week. Something important happened in town. 225 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:15.480 Look for a valley's sentinel coverage. I fled pages, expecting 226 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:18.600 to find her reaction, but the trail vanished. The rest 227 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:21.559 of the month was boringly in depth. My own journals 228 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:23.360 from that they were a habit inherited from my mother, 229 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:27.039 drew a line through those days entirely brain parade, cat 230 00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:29.960 and the bandsend Mom busy. The next entry let to 231 00:11:29.960 --> 00:11:33.080 a week later in my own rounder child's hand. The 232 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:36.960 contradiction deepened. If some residents could remember the smallest detailed 233 00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:39.960 baking scones, a cat's misadventure, a mismatched float, we'll know 234 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:42.159 two agreed on what else had happened except the lone 235 00:11:42.159 --> 00:11:46.559 anecdote for each week. A retired teacher remembered tabulating parade's scores, 236 00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:49.360 but only for the float with the wobbly wheels. Our 237 00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:51.879 ti pastor claimed the headline on July eighth was youth 238 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:54.600 choir sings in the rain, yet conceded when pressed he 239 00:11:54.600 --> 00:11:58.879 could recall no salm. One afternoon, scanning through brittle Manila envelopes, 240 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:02.240 I found ten photographs from those missing weeks. Each bore 241 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:04.440 a fading stamp jail. Why seventy six or U C 242 00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:08.320 T ninety seven? No crowds, no bounds, just front yards, 243 00:12:08.399 --> 00:12:10.919 main street in indistinct, whether the park sign at dusk. 244 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:14.039 People's faces were usually turned or blurw by motion, as 245 00:12:14.039 --> 00:12:17.759 though the camera too had lost intention. I tried constructing 246 00:12:17.799 --> 00:12:19.519 a time mine. The only thing that survived was a 247 00:12:19.559 --> 00:12:22.200 token event, different for each missing week, but never overlapping, 248 00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:26.159 always blind, a cat, a missing hat rain. All else dissolved. 249 00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:29.240 I drew up a list of questions. Why did every source, 250 00:12:29.279 --> 00:12:31.879 regardless of purpose or author, expect a newspaper to be there. 251 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:35.960 Why did church groups, council minutes, even family diaries refer 252 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:40.000 to articles thence werve into generalities. Whyder photographs from those 253 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:43.799 weeks exist but show nothing useful? What in the name 254 00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:46.279 of every reference system I'd ever learned was causing only 255 00:12:46.279 --> 00:12:48.200 a single bland detail to persist for a whole week 256 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:50.960 in local memory. One stare at the archive's shelf was 257 00:12:51.039 --> 00:12:53.200 enough for the thought to bloom. Perhaps the phenomenon was 258 00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:55.799 not missing journalism, but a deep, slow seepage of vegas 259 00:12:55.799 --> 00:12:59.399 throughout collective memory. The vacuum was as much cultural as archevel. 260 00:13:00.039 --> 00:13:02.159 In the following days, my search took on the energy 261 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:05.279 of a true investigation. If I paid the museum's catalog 262 00:13:05.320 --> 00:13:08.159 against the libraries yearbooks and compared town hall records line 263 00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:11.559 by line, surely some physical echo would declare itself. I 264 00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:14.600 drew councils minutes, old church bulletins, and even scanned the 265 00:13:14.639 --> 00:13:17.440 Oak Bluff Now Civic News Leader, hoping for secondary echo. 266 00:13:18.039 --> 00:13:21.159 Again and again, for each missing week, I found council 267 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:24.879 minutes as the newspaper reported July thirteen, nineteen seventy six. 268 00:13:25.039 --> 00:13:28.840 Entry ends shifted to next item. Church bulletins see Sentinel 269 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:32.399 July eight for details on youth choir. No further details anywhere, 270 00:13:32.919 --> 00:13:35.480 neighborhood newsletters. Thank you to all who helped After the 271 00:13:35.480 --> 00:13:40.159 big green CF Valley Sentinel report, no photos, enclose, personal diaries, 272 00:13:40.279 --> 00:13:42.679 papers as parade cut short, not much else to report, 273 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:45.720 cat and bounced and again. The peculiarity wasn't just the 274 00:13:45.799 --> 00:13:48.080 lack of content. It was the way in which every 275 00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:50.480 source leaned on the newspaper's existence as a bridge to 276 00:13:50.480 --> 00:13:53.919 their own gaps, then turned away, providing neither sum nor recollection. 277 00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:56.600 The more official the document, the more dutiful the act 278 00:13:56.600 --> 00:13:59.039 of record keeping, the more intently gestured to a substance 279 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:01.799 that was never present. I raised the topic in our 280 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:05.360 Thursday evening book group, which had migrated mid pandemic from 281 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:07.399 the dim Library reading room to a side table at 282 00:14:07.399 --> 00:14:10.720 Grayzi's cafe. The effect of collective nostagia in Oak Bluff 283 00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:12.840 could be stride into people here can spent our arguing 284 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:15.679 the paint color of the bandstands West Railing circa eighty nine. 285 00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:18.000 But I was curious to see if the pattern persisted. 286 00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:21.600 So July nineteen seventy six, I asked the circle, shifting 287 00:14:21.639 --> 00:14:24.039 from the week's novel to the puzzle at hand, who 288 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:27.000 remembers the rain parade? There was a wave of laughter, 289 00:14:27.159 --> 00:14:30.320 a flurry of nods. Oh those were action pac times, 290 00:14:30.360 --> 00:14:32.799 piped Terry, who'd been the junior high librarian back then, 291 00:14:33.440 --> 00:14:35.960 rained so hard I thought the creek would leap the bridge, 292 00:14:36.120 --> 00:14:39.440 added Mora, still tending the same roses outside her old house. 293 00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:43.519 My scone sold out before noon, said grace, automatic and cheerful. 294 00:14:44.120 --> 00:14:47.080 I pressed for details. Was the parade rescheduled, did the 295 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:49.799 cat make head lines? Was there more than one event? 296 00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:53.639 Each in their way retreated? Oh the rest is hazy, 297 00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:56.519 but we all pitched in. Who remembers all the details? Anyway? 298 00:14:56.559 --> 00:14:58.679 A funny. I still have the recipe from that week. 299 00:14:59.080 --> 00:15:00.799 It struck me at the end of the scone the 300 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:03.759 cat the rain was echoed verbatant, almost identically between them, 301 00:15:04.279 --> 00:15:08.200 same wording no embellishment. The rest dissolved into jokes about 302 00:15:08.200 --> 00:15:10.519 the weather or sides stepped in to remember when tangents 303 00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:13.799 far from their original week. I left that night not deflated, 304 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:16.879 but curiously unsettled the story of the week. The cat 305 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:19.360 got stuck of the single triviality clonted by everyone had 306 00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:21.960 become a token substitute for whatever else those days might 307 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:25.360 have held. That evening back home, I unlocked the tronka 308 00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:28.840 kept for keepsakes in childhood journals in my handwriting. The 309 00:15:28.919 --> 00:15:31.559 diary for July seventy six trailed off mid sentence for 310 00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:34.440 reigning again. Mom says parade as postponed, cat still in it, 311 00:15:34.480 --> 00:15:37.200 and then nothing. No more entries that week. The following 312 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:39.320 Monday's writing was as clear as ever, picking up on 313 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:42.840 skill excitement and trivill pligger and politics. Somehow I'd lived 314 00:15:42.840 --> 00:15:44.919 in a town and worked as its librarian without noticing 315 00:15:44.919 --> 00:15:47.159 that we were missing not just documents, but our un 316 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:49.799 grasp on history. This was not a case of lost 317 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.759 microfilm or ruined folders. The very substance of remembering had, 318 00:15:52.879 --> 00:15:55.919 in careful, consistent ways, been a face, always replaced by 319 00:15:55.919 --> 00:15:58.879 a bland standing. It was as if the community, without 320 00:15:58.879 --> 00:16:02.720 permission or recognition, had cordoned off certain days nobody called 321 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:06.399 it that nobody named it, But across three decade, through 322 00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:08.679 all our little mechanisms of memory, those weeks now wore 323 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:11.960 the same mask, the single safe anecdot. Determined not to 324 00:16:12.039 --> 00:16:14.399 let the trail cool. I invited Mags for Saturday tea, 325 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:17.200 and together, over a slightly scorched batch of ginger scuns, 326 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:20.240 we mapped out a plan. If this was more than paperwork, 327 00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:22.600 God arrived, the absence lit across the community, then every 328 00:16:22.600 --> 00:16:24.960 place that blustered its memories should show the same pattern. 329 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:27.480 We recruited Tom and Grace to help, though each had 330 00:16:27.519 --> 00:16:30.799 their own reasons for skepticism. Tom insisted the Archhouse had 331 00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:32.679 been in a state of minor chaos ever since the 332 00:16:32.679 --> 00:16:34.679 first computer came in and that this was likely an 333 00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:38.759 indexing failure. Grace, ever, the Peacemaker, spected at atoun Wye 334 00:16:38.759 --> 00:16:41.440 case of collective distraction, perhaps a festival that had drawn 335 00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:45.000 every one's attention elsewhere. We began at the museum, interviewing 336 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:48.240 each other in our different roles. Grace recounted for the 337 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:50.399 fifth time that was the week of scones and cat. 338 00:16:50.440 --> 00:16:52.559 But when press who got the cat down? Who was there? 339 00:16:52.639 --> 00:16:56.320 What else happened to? She squinted, shrugged, laugh off the gap. Tom, 340 00:16:56.440 --> 00:16:59.080 for all his journalistic memory, returned each time to his 341 00:16:59.159 --> 00:17:01.440 car floating on Maine during the July storm, but could 342 00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:04.160 not recall where he parked, whether he'd written anything else, 343 00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:06.400 or even what else had filled the front page that week. 344 00:17:07.079 --> 00:17:10.319 Max found it disconcerting, declaring, it's like the Amigi get 345 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:12.640 when you can't find new glasses until you realize they 346 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:14.880 are already on your head. Except the town is the glasses. 347 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.640 We checked the scrap of photo albums for July nineteen 348 00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:22.119 seventy six, October nineteen ninety seven, March nineteen ninety three. 349 00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:25.359 Each date had a handful of pictures, port steps, post storm, rainbow, 350 00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:28.759 a picnic. In all of them, the events were unremarkable, 351 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:31.160 faces blood or framed off center, as if the photographer 352 00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:34.480 too had forgotten the purpose. It was Grace who realized 353 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:37.799 that children's school assignments essays drawings were also unusually blanned 354 00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:41.440 for those weeks. Maybe the teachers gave different homework, or 355 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:44.200 maybe we just didn't talk about it at the library. 356 00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:47.960 A page through late spring yearbooks the gap assisted. The 357 00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:51.400 nineteen seventy six year book, for example, contained three pages 358 00:17:51.400 --> 00:17:53.640 devoted to the Drama Club review in June, but July 359 00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:56.960 was gloss. Community helped after range Rum see sentinel. The 360 00:17:56.960 --> 00:17:59.559 effect was cumulative and eerie, more so because there was 361 00:17:59.559 --> 00:18:02.039 no alarm in it, no hint of cover up or disaster, 362 00:18:02.799 --> 00:18:05.000 just a careful blankness. As neat and tidy is our 363 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:08.400 best label. Foretos, we spread our findings over the original 364 00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:12.960 museum table. Tom, slightly winded from recounting his tales, declared, well, 365 00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:15.799 there's plenty of years I've lost bad memory, too much whisky. 366 00:18:15.839 --> 00:18:18.599 Maybe the whole town just moved on mag as didn't 367 00:18:18.599 --> 00:18:21.640 buy it. If even the catalog cards, my own writing 368 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:24.119 from ninety seven say the papers were here and I 369 00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:26.039 have no reason to fake them, then while we all 370 00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:28.519 miss in the same information. It's not normal error, is it. 371 00:18:28.599 --> 00:18:30.880 A missing file in both card and computer is usually 372 00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:33.279 misfiled or perched. But these look in touch, like someone 373 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:36.240 cleaned them before we even noticed. Later that week, on 374 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:38.759 my own I decided to check the local census for records, 375 00:18:38.839 --> 00:18:41.480 listing every family by address, and cross reference them with 376 00:18:41.559 --> 00:18:44.319 the issues that should have contained new home announcements, obituaries, 377 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:47.039 the usual markers of town movement. In the margin of 378 00:18:47.079 --> 00:18:49.759 almost every census century for the missing weeks, there appeared 379 00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:52.960 a tidy note c F Sentinel p. Three, but always 380 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:56.039 with no attached transcript. Once, in a letter from a 381 00:18:56.079 --> 00:18:58.319 resident to her out of state daughter, I found I 382 00:18:58.359 --> 00:19:01.440 clipped the story about Tim Rainbard's reave funny picture well more. 383 00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:05.000 Next time, the clipping, naturally was not preserved, and the 384 00:19:05.039 --> 00:19:08.640 next correspondent skipped ahead. I became certain then that we won. 385 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:12.079 Dealing solely with a couple of lost boxes. A phenomenon, 386 00:19:12.119 --> 00:19:14.839 whatever it was, impacted more than just the physical archive, 387 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:18.119 shaped every community mechanism of memory, leaving blank spaces and 388 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:20.480 neat references, as if to convince even itself that nothing 389 00:19:20.519 --> 00:19:23.799 important was lost. Determine to gather a wider sample. We 390 00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:25.680 put up a sign in a cafe calling all up 391 00:19:25.720 --> 00:19:28.480 bluff historians. Do you remember July nineteen seventy six for 392 00:19:28.559 --> 00:19:32.079 October nineteen ninety seven, tell us what you recall. That Saturday, 393 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:34.240 half a dozen patients joined us at the long table, 394 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:37.319 two with yellowing photo albums, one with console meeting records, 395 00:19:37.359 --> 00:19:40.640 another bearing the neat diaries of her late mother. As before, 396 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:42.680 each are told the same single act of the rain 397 00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:45.680 to parade the cat, the Mayer's missing hat. Details beyond 398 00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:48.960 these withered under gentle questioning when press about context, who 399 00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:52.039 else participated, what happened next? What else made the front page? 400 00:19:52.039 --> 00:19:54.960 Each return to save territory, repeating, well, you know how 401 00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:57.680