Well, probably he did. But history doesn't make a big thing about that. He's better known for his explorations and his recording of paranormal legends. Like I am.
And yet, here I sit.
"....We received a grant to help us fix the windows after the recent storm," the library director said. "So our maintenance department will be working on that soon."
That's right. The storm. Forgot about that.
I sat in the back of the reference room, among all my co-workers. Zach and Adam were always in the back with me. Diane, the director, sat up front. My other co-workers around the table.
"That's about all I have," said the director. "Full-timers, I need you to stay. Part-timers can go."
I threw my hands in the air. "Woohoo!"
Outside the library, I got on my bike and rode southeast. I'm a part-time library staffer in Lock Haven. I could also be considered a part-time paranormal investigator, writer, historian, tour guide, museum curator, and urban explorer. I don't sleep much.
There are the ruins of an old railroad machine shop along Liberty Street. People walk by it all the time without really looking; they think it's just a flat concrete pad and some girders there for no discernible reason. But a few years ago, I'd looked it up on the 1925 Sanborn Map, and learned that it was a railroad shop, built sometime around 1915.
It had been built from local brick. Sometime around the 1950s, it had been demolished, but a lot of those bricks were still lying there underground, waiting to be found. Often, after a hard rain, they get partially uncovered.
I check every couple of months. It's a form of public service.
I parked my bike and walked in, along the tracks. I found one---An unbroken, good-sized brick with the writing carved in it. LH B&T CO, LOCK HAVEN, PA. At least a hundred years old.
It was too heavy to carry in my backpack. I biked across the church parking lot to the local grocery store and picked up four plastic bags along with my dinner.
I rode back to the ruins, I knelt down and pried the brick from the ground. It was heavy; I hefted it with some effort. I placed it in three bags, doubled up, slung it over my handlebars, and rode off toward home.
Shoemaker would have been proud.
Asking for a friend.
There was this seminar. Historic archiving and preservation. It was held at the Taber Museum in Williamsport, next county over from where I live. And my my boss and I decided we were going to attend it together.
These things are a lot like a train going uphill: They start off okay, but it doesn't take long before they get really slow.
"So, this seems like a good time to break for lunch," said the instructor. "We'll meet back here in an hour."
Everyone stood up, stretched, got in line.The director said,"I'm going to eat outside in the car. See if you can network a bit. I'll be back in an hour."
"Can do," I said.
I wound up next to a woman named Carly, from Allentown. I was wearing my shirt that said Historian: You'd be more interesting if you were dead.
"I grew up not far from Allentown," I said. "In Slatington, on a small farm."
She brightened. "Oh, yes! I know Slatington."
"You know, one of my big heroes from this area visited out there," I said. "Henry Wharton Shoemaker. He wrote a book about his trip. A Week In The Appalachian Mountains."
"Really? That's so cool!"
"You can get it on Amazon," I said. "I got a copy."
Lunch was a sandwich and chips, pretty easily wolfable in five minutes or less. Which left me with almost an hour to go and explore the museum. I strolled out into the lobby, and found Gary, the director of the Taber Museum.
"Gary, I been dying to know," I said. "A couple years ago when you were on the ghost-hunting show The Dead Files, how badly did they edit you?"
Gary rolled his eyes. "It was awful. They kept trying to get me to say things that were untrue."
"I got that impression," I said. "My team was called in on that one before the TV people. Did you get to meet the homeowner?"
Gary shook his head. "I mostly met the boom guy."
"The homeowner was nuts. I mean, she claimed to have been assaulted by a ghost. She couldn't stick to a story. Later when I interviewed her neighbors, they told me she'd been seen in the backyard wearing a tinfoil hat."
Gary laughed. "I thought that was just an expression."
"Yeah, so did I, until that time."
I headed out into the gift shop, and picked up a couple of pretty rocks for Paul. My son has an interest in rocks lately. They don't have to be brightly colored and shiny, but it helps.
As I paid, I saw the postcard on the counter. Nellie Tallman. The haunted portrait.
That's right....I'd forgotten about that.
"So, tell me about the haunted painting," I said to the woman ringing me up.
She smiled. "Oh, yes. That little girl fell off the stool and died while her father was painting her. It hung in their house for years, but kept falling off the wall. Finally he gave up and stored it in the attic. The first night it was donated here, a car smashed through the museum and knocked it down. After that, we've had times when it won't stay on the wall---It's always found in the morning, propped on the sofa."
I nodded and picked up the postcard. "Add this in, please."
I walked through the museum, looking at all the neat stuff. Sketches by John Sloan. The cell door of William Hummel, who'd been hanged for killing his family---I'd gotten a four-part series of articles out of him a while back.
Got the whole museum to myself, more or less unsupervised---This is excellent. You'd think I'd be used to that by now, but this one is bigger and doesn't have as many airplanes.
Many of the displays were sectioned off to look like rooms---An old-style kitchen, a bedroom, a cabin. There were cavemen and Indians. I rounded a corner and saw the Victorian living room display, and there it was. Nellie's portrait.
So, Nellie. There you are.
I got a laser thermometer and an EMF detector out of my pocket. I usually have a little ghost-hunting equipment on me. I checked around with the thermometer---The place had an average temperature of about seventy-three in this wing, which dropped to seventy around the portrait. Notable---Not too significant.
I took a couple of photos, which I wasn't so sure was allowed, but nobody was watching.
I pressed the button on the EMF detector. Mine is a little thing shaped like a wand, about five inches long. They're for finding electricity. Mostly they're made for not drilling into a wire and killing yourself, but they've been adapted to ghost hunting, too.
I walked around the area a little, waving the detector. No readings. I checked the back side of the wall, in the hallway. Nothing. No electricity was leaking from the wall; there was no reason to suggest there was any there.
Then, cautiously, I sidled up to the exhibit, right beside the railing.
I leaned over the railing a little, which I was pretty sure I wasn't allowed to do, and reeeeeached in to the painting. Trying to look very, very casual, I held up the EMF detector, getting it to within a couple of inches.
And it beeped once, just for a second.
Got something!
My eyes widened, and I immediately withdrew it. I shoved it in my pocket and scampered back down the hall.
It was early in the evening when we got back to the library. Adam was on the desk. I walked in and dropped my pack, checking my mailbox.
"Hey!" Adam said. "How was the seminar?"
"Not bad," I said. "May have picked up a few new preservation tricks. And I got to explore the museum a bit."
"You learn anything good?"
I grinned.
"Yeah," I said. "I may have."
No comments:
Post a Comment