All Good Things: Prologue
This is how it begins.
It was a pleasant, windy day as I rode my bike down to the east end of Lock Haven. I'd left my daughter watching my little boy up at the house, and headed down to do some work. I pulled my bike up and parked it in front of the Piper Aviation Museum.
I'd been volunteering for Piper for a few months now. I'd seen an article in the newspaper saying they needed new volunteers, so I'd called and signed up. I'd been coming down and doing odd jobs, learning the archives and the procedures. Just like last time I'd worked at a museum.
I took the elevator up to the second floor and found the secretary, Stacey, sitting in her office.
"Hi, Stacey," I said. "Came to see if there's anything I can do."
"Oh, hi, Lou," said Stacey. "We have some things back in the archives for you to de-accession. And you can spend some time familiarizing yourself with the files, too."
"Excellent."
Stacey handed me the key, and I walked over to the archives. The Piper Museum is three stories of awesomeness---Airplanes, artifacts, and information dedicated to the days when the Piper Aircraft company was in Lock Haven. Planes had been made right in the building---There were some in the hangar down below. I loved going down to walk among them. The second floor was artifacts and archives. I'd once spent a whole day just running around taking photos.
I unlocked the archive room and walked in. A big, climate-controlled room with shelves and drawers. Already I'd gotten two columns out of just looking around, plus ideas for several others. And I'd been running the Piper newsletter, with one issue out already.
I sat down to work on the de-accessioning. Got up, walked around the room, and looked through some of the file drawers. My favorite so far was just a drawer of random topics---I'd discovered last week that there were concrete arrows all over America, for the purpose of pointing air mail in the right direction.
I spotted one labelled "Ghost In Photo."
Huh. What's this now?
The file contained a photo from a 1944 Piper event, showing an audience in an auditorium. On the right side was a blurry, transparent figure of a man, wearing some kind of uniform. There was another photo without him, taken apparently just before. And some correspondence from 2010, with one of the old volunteers e-mailing it to various ghost hunters and asking for opinions.
I set both photos on the table and looked them over. Okay, what's more likely? That this is a ghost, or that it's a guy who was in front of the shutter at just the right moment? Let's compare.
It took me a few minutes before I got it.
I took the photos out to the main office, where Stacey had been joined by the museum president, John. They were sitting and talking.
"This is pretty cool," I said. "I found these back there. I'd like to make a few copies."
Stacey looked over the photos. "Oh, yeah. I remember these."
"Took me a while, but I figured it out. See, this is the photo with the ghost. Now, this could be just a guy with a slow shutter speed."
John nodded. "A lot of them were slow back then."
"Now, here's one that seems to have been taken just a few minutes earlier. I had to search for it, but here---Look at this guy."
We all squinted at the photo. I said,"This guy here---He's wearing the same sort of uniform. You can see, he's in the earlier photo, but if you're looking close, he's not in the later one---The one with the ghost. See, there's these two women, and then nobody. His seat is empty."
"Oh, yeah," said Stacey. "So he got up to go onstage, or go to the bathroom, or something...."
"And that's when they clicked the photo," I said. "Yeah. Not a ghost, just this specific guy. I think I'd like to make a copy of these, and maybe put it in the Express."
"Lou, I've wanted to talk to you," said John. "Would you like to be on our board?"
I paused.
"What? Sure. Yes."
"We need new members. A lot of our people are getting too old, and we need some newer, younger people. I'd like to nominate you."
"I'd be honored," I said.
Stacey nodded. "I'll e-mail you the details for the next meeting."