Prequel 3 - Then It All Went Wrong

Episode 3 - Then It All Went Wrong

A hot wind swirled in the air, sending ash swirling like summer snow. Spencer watched the distant forest fire with a mix of awe and apprehension. It had already consumed many acres of timber and grassland outside of town, but the community banded together to dig trenches and cut a fire line and so no one seemed overly worried about the fire. Spencer, who had watched even 21st century firefighting methods struggle to contain wildfires, was much more nervous.

The Clemens’ farm seemed outside of harm’s way for now, but he looked at his freshly-built house, only a few months old, and couldn’t help but be concerned. The midday sun was an eerie orange dot through the smoky haze, and breathing was slightly more difficult than normal. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the day the smoke filtered light had a twilight feel to it, and the shadows were muted. Spencer grabbed his lunch pail and turned to start his walk into town. Mark Clemens had offered to teach him how to ride a horse so that he could travel around faster, but he declined. He found he really enjoyed walking, something he really hadn’t done much of in his suburban condominium complex back in his “old” life.

Spencer’s mind wandered as he walked, and he arrived in town in no time, admiring the small main street lined with now familiar shops. He knew he would outgrow it soon, and his ambitions led him away from Hood River, but he appreciated the community for what it was. The community was abuzz with discussions about the fire, with speculation about where it would go next. It was south of town and moving steadily eastwards, so most speculated the threat would abate soon.

As he restocked shelves and cleaned up the store, Spencer found himself wondering if there even was much of a firefighting strategy in the late 1800s. He remembered reading about rival private firefighting companies that would arrive at a fire in New York or Baltimore and have street brawls to see who would get the reward of putting out the fire. Meanwhile, the building at risk would often burn to the ground. Sometimes, private firefighting companies would only fight fires in buildings insured by the insurance companies that paid them. He wasn’t sure if towns like Hood River even had a public fire department at this point, or if it was all volunteer, but he certainly could not picture the citizens of this town brawling in the streets over who got to fight a raging inferno.

Spencer remembered seeing forest fires in California and Oregon, burning wildly as planes and helicopters valiantly fought back. What chance, then, did the folks of the late 1880s have against an out of control fire? The Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s contained many of the forest fires that sprang up during the devastating drought of that time period, but they also had a tremendous amount of manpower and resources not available to Hood River in the late 19th century.

As he was tidying up a window display in the front of the store there was a commotion outside. The bell attached to the door jingled as he poked his head out into the street to see what was going on. A teenaged boy on horseback was breathlessly talking to a small gathered crowd in the middle of the street and two women in the group had a hand over their mouths. 

The boy took off at a gallop down the street and Spencer gave a questioning shrug to one of the men turning away from the crowd. “The fire is shifting and heading towards the edge of town, “ the man said, face drawn and pale. “My grandchildren are helping my son work the farm on the east side…” The man trailed off and wandered aimlessly away down the street. Spencer felt a gust of warm wind behind him, cracking the loose legs of his pants like two flapping flags. He felt his stomach drop as he realized that the boy on horseback was right, the wind had shifted and was blowing almost directly north, straight towards the Clemens’ farm.

He dashed into the store, wildly looking for Mr. Saunders to tell him where he was headed. Unable to locate the store owner, he hastily scrawled a note in pencil on a scrap of paper and slammed the door on his way out, the bell jingling violently in protest. Spencer was no great runner, but months of walking to the store and back had him in decent shape. Adrenaline and fear drove all thoughts of muscle pain out of his mind, and nervous bile was sour in his throat as he ran.

He headed east down the road back towards the farm, and as he got to the outskirts of town, was horrified to see the orange glow of fire to the south, and ahead of him. In front of him. 

Spencer quickened his pace, passing two fully engulfed farmhouses on his right as he ran. The Curtis family shopped at the store regularly, and he saw them huddled on their front lawn with their three children, staring in helpless awe as their house and barn burned out of control. The Curtis’ two horses ran wild-eyed through one of the distant fields, crops blackened by the fire that had recently washed over the land. A small haphazard pile of possessions littered the yard. An old rocking chair, a few dolls, and a pile of chinaware were all that had been salvaged before the blaze consumed the rest.

Even before he rounded the curve in the road, Spencer could see plumes of smoke billowing high into the sky from where he knew the Clemens’ farm was. A small stand of trees smoldered to his left, and he pushed aside ruined pine branches as he turned towards home, painting his face with ash.

As he burst from the trees and into the open farmland, he could see a small crowd gathered along a fenceline, watching the Clemens’ farmhouse burn. Spencer felt a mixture of panic and rage. Why were they just standing there? He approached at a run and one of the men along the fence grabbed him around the waist, pleading with him to stop. Spencer did not know or care who it was, and the pleas fell on his deaf ears, roaring with rushing blood dosed in adrenaline. 

As he vaulted the fence, he was stunned to note that his small house, lovingly built by hand, and only 100 yards from the Clemens, was untouched by the fire. (Later, to his utter horror, he would learn that the Clemens family had carried buckets of water to douse his home with water before running to try to save their own belongings as the flames bore down.)

Spencer stumbled and fell, feeling something in his ankle snap as he tumbled to the ground, his face pressed to the earth, the fragrance of the soil mixed with the rich smell of wood smoke. As he tried to pull himself up he was dimly aware of many voices now, calling out for him to stop in panicked voices. The heat from the burning house hit him in sheets, like gusts of wind flattening a field of grass. As he got closer, Spencer realized he didn’t even know if the Clemens family was inside the house, didn’t know where in the house they would be, and yet he burst through the door anyway, into a disorienting swirl of smoke and fire. 

He pulled a bandana from his pocket and quickly tied it around his face and mouth, then got down low to the ground and tried to orient himself. Above him, timbers creaked and he heard pops as the dry wood planks of the floor split under the intense heat. 

Spencer smelled something acrid and realized it was his own hair and eyebrows singing in the heat. Smoke billowed and rolled like waves across the ceiling, and somewhere upstairs he heard a window shatter. He crawled across the floor, now painfully aware of the searing sharp crunching of his injured ankle. 

With no sign of anyone on the ground floor, Spencer turned to the stairs, and what he saw when he looked up into the smoky gloom of the stairway made his stomach drop. The Clemens family was huddled together at the top of the stairs, flames surrounding them and half the staircase completely engulfed. Through sheets of fire he heard Mark yell, “We’re sending the children down first Spencer!”

Spencer did not think any amount of pep talk was sufficient for this moment, and so he merely opened his arms in a gesture that he hoped would convey that he was here to help. He knew there was precious little time before the whole house came down. There was daylight showing through the burned out roof behind and above the Clemens family.

Timmy started to go down the stairs, his parents yelling at him to “Go! Go!” He made it a few steps down and then, face contorted with fear and anguish, turned back towards the landing. Justine started down the stairs, making her way down like a crab, legs out in front and hands behind her on the stair above. She looked up at Spencer, and while he saw fear in her face, there was a fierce look in her eyes. Half of the hair on the left side of her head was curled and singed by the fire, and she had a wild and almost savage determination as she reached the middle of the staircase. 

Suddenly, three stairs collapsed in a shower of sparks. For a brief moment, Spencer was convinced that Justine would simply vanish into the flaming void, but instead, incredibly, she rose to her feet and dove headfirst. She landed on the last few stairs and tumbled to a stop right in front of Spencer, who gathered her up in his arms and hobbled towards the front door, ankle screaming in protest.

The hot air and smoke burned his lungs, especially now that he was no longer plastered to the floor where the precious remaining oxygen lingered. Spots popped in his vision and the rushing in his ears returned, blocking out all sound. Time seemed to stand still as he made his way towards the open door, now hanging awkwardly on one hinge, the door frame bent under the strain of the collapsing structure.

He felt the heat at his back as he staggered the last few steps to the outline of the front door, dimly lit through the roiling smoke. There was a large crash behind him, and something behind Spencer hit him violently across the shoulders, propelling him forward. He clutched Justine as he fell, not sure if the scream that penetrated the roaring in his ears was hers, or his own. And then everything went black.

Prequel 2 - Home Sweet Home

Episode 2 - Home Sweet Home

Spencer stepped back to admire his handiwork, sweat dripping down his forehead despite the chill to the early Spring air. Daffodils were bravely pushing through the soil in the gardens he passed every day on his walk to work at the general store, and ferns were unfurling in the shady fringes of the woods.

His big accomplishment was a very simple one room house, with a sloping metal roof. It was basically a glorified lean-to, but it had a door and windows on three sides, which he was proud of. Spencer not being much of an architect, he modeled the dwelling after the shelters he slept in while hiking along the Long Trail and Appalachian Trail as a kid at summer camp in the woods of Vermont. All in all, it was a pretty nice place, and allowed him to move out of the cabin he had been illegally squatting in. Spencer left a short thank-you/apology note in the cabin, along with a handful of silver dollars on the table when he left, mostly to assuage his own guilt.

He sat on the front stairs, what he supposed amounted to a front porch on his modest home, and tried to figure out what was missing. He snapped his fingers, grabbed a shovel, and headed to the grove of trees next to the house. He dug up a few ferns, hauled them back to the house, planted them, and then added some rocks around the edge to form a crude flower bed. As he stood and dusted off his dirty hands on his pants, a little voice carried over the lawn in front of his new house.

“Hi Spencer! Can I help with your house?”

Spencer turned to see little Timmy Clemens galloping across the yard on a wooden hobby horse, clutching the horse in one hand and waving a little American flag with the other. He couldn’t help but smile at this kid, who was a care-free five or six years old.

“You know, I COULD use some help, I was just attaching this very important board to the stairs.” Spencer started the nails, got them most of the way in, and handed the hammer to Timmy who grinned and started aggressively swinging it. Spencer frowned a bit and grinned apologetically at the woman who was approaching at a brisk pace. 

“All right, sir, I think that’s enough help for today,” said Clara Clemens, gently but firmly grabbing the hammer from Timmy and handing it to Spencer. “I think there are some hungry chickens in the coop, why don’t you take your horse and head that way.” 

“Charrrrrge!” roared Timmy, as he galloped off in the direction of the chicken coop.

“This is looking mighty fine,” said Clara admiringly as she looked appraisingly at Spencer’s completed home.

“All thanks to you,” Spencer said theatrically, and tipped his head to Clara, who laughed. As a teacher, Spencer had a reputation for being entertaining and a bit odd, frequently speaking in accents or singing random lines of his lectures. It was off-putting to some of the less creative students, but most found it at least mildly endearing.

Over the last few months, Spencer had grown close to Clara and her husband Mark, and of course with their son and headstrong daughter Justine. Anxious to save as much money as possible for his upcoming strategic investment plans, Spencer answered a wanted ad he saw in the local paper:

Wanted: Part-time farm hand to help with basic chores, Inquire with Mark Clemens at the first farm on the left on Granby Road - east side of town.

They agreed on a reduced pay rate in exchange for the supplies and land necessary for Spencer to build his own home. Mark agreed to pay a fair price for the house whenever Spencer eventually moved on, which seemed more than generous. In the early mornings before he started work at the general store, Spencer would emerge from his under-construction house and trudge across the lawn to the barn, soaking his boots in dew, and yawning as the Clemens’ rooster incessantly reminded everyone that the sun was coming up.

As he milked and fed the cows, Spencer’s mind wandered to his future and dwelled on his past. He wondered if anyone in his former life and time missed him. He mused about his wife, who had vanished into thin air 5 years earlier, not even bothering to leave him a note about why, or where she was going. It had wounded Spencer deeply, and came seemingly out of nowhere. They had been talking about trying to have kids, planning their futures together, and then she was gone. Spencer supposed he had done the exact same disappearing act, though unintentionally.

“You there?” Spencer was jolted out of his day dream by Clara, who waved her hand in front of his face as if attempting to bring him out of hypnosis. 

“So sorry Clara,” Spencer muttered, “I don’t know where my mind goes sometimes.”

“You’re just like Mark, I think he would forget to dress himself some days if I didn’t remind him.” Clara grinned and presented a small package to Spencer, who unwrapped it to find a crocheted house with the words “Home Sweet Home” above it. 

“Just a little something to get you started on decorating your mansion,” she said, winking.

“Thank you Clara, really.” Spencer found himself tearing up a bit, and Clara quickly looked away to save his dignity a bit. 

“Where are Mark and Justine?” Spencer asked.

“In town, gathering some supplies and going to the grocer and the butcher shop. You might see them on your way.”

Spencer fished his pocket watch out and was startled to see it was indeed time for him to head to work. He bid farewell to Clara, splashed some water on his face and washed his hands. Mr. Saunders was not particular about his attire at the store, but Spencer still wanted to maintain at least some standards.

Later that afternoon, Spencer walked along the road into town, kicking rocks with a dusty boot and whistling to himself. An early spring butterfly floated soundlessly past him and, not for the first time, he was struck by the quiet. With no highways or busy roads, the only sound on rural roads was the occasional clopping of horse hooves as a buggy rode past. This time period reminded him of his commute through rural Indiana during the year he student taught at a community high school. Nearly every day he would have to weave around Amish folks on the rural highway in his beat up Nissan Sentra, waving to the bearded occupants of the horse-drawn buggies, who sometimes waved back, but more often responded with grave looks that seemed to say “I would rather our worlds not collide today.”

He made his way through town, past storefronts sporting advertisements for the circus that was coming to town, or the local high school baseball team’s upcoming game. So much had changed, and yet just as much had not in the last 100 years in America. He peered into the local barber shop on his way by and waved to the elderly barber Mr. Jenkins, who returned his greeting from the dim interior of the shop, its faded wooden barber pole standing silent vigil outside.

“Looks like you need to pay me a visit soon, son!” he called, and gestured to Spencer’s hair, which was indeed getting a bit shaggy.

As he stepped into the general store, he saw that Saunders was standing behind the counter locked in a fierce battle of checkers with a girl of about ten. The girl had very curly hair tied back with a piece of blue ribbon, and was standing on a wooden stool so that she could see the board. The look of consternation on Saunder’s face told Spencer that he was likely on the brink of defeat, and he looked none too pleased.

With one final move of her pieces, Justine Clemens raised her arms in triumph and jumped down off the stool, spinning and cheering like she had just won the lottery. Mr. Saunders looked on grumpily, but begrudgingly handed her a few pieces of penny candy as a reward for her victory.

Spencer spotted Mark Clemens in the back of the store shopping. He was a tall, wiry man, with a pair of thick mutton chops. The late 1800s would be a hipster’s paradise in regards to facial hair, Spencer had decided after his first week in this time period.

Justine ran over and high-fived Spencer. He hoped the ripple effects of introducing this particular greeting almost a century early wouldn’t cause a global calamity, but that ship had probably sailed at this point anyway. Justine had a white sash across her chest that had “Votes for Women” carefully scrawled in a child’s handwriting. As Hood River’s youngest suffragette, she prided herself on wearing it everywhere. It earned her more than a few reproachful looks, especially from the town’s older citizens, but Justine was very proficient at ignoring people she didn’t want to talk to. After all, she was ten.

“Justine, leave Mr. Reed be,” called Mark from the back of the store, struggling with an armload of goods. “No harm done,” said Spencer, winking at Justine and hustling to the back of the store to help Mark wrangle his items.

Spencer smiled to himself as he watched Justine skip out the door, her Votes for Women sash proudly on display. He was so grateful for the warmth and generosity of the Clemens family, and would have been horrified in that moment if he knew the horror that awaited them. WIthin a week, only one member of the family would be left alive.

Prequel 1 - Capturing the Moment

Episode 1 - Capturing the Moment

By Christmas of 1895, Spencer had been living in the Hood River Oregon vicinity for a little over a month. By day, he worked in the general store run by Mr. Saunders, a man of roughly 45 years who made a decent living selling necessities for the town. 

New folks were always wandering in and out of town, so Spencer’s arrival didn’t draw any undue attention. In fact, he had not really had to drum up much of a fictional backstory for anyone yet. Customers were usually in a hurry, and Mr. Saunders spent his words frugally.

In the weeks since his inexplicable travel through time, Spencer had reflected on his situation constantly. He missed a few of his colleagues at work, football games on Sunday, and the internet, but not as much as he would have guessed. In fact, he was relatively certain that the thing that would frustrate him the most about being unceremoniously thrust into the late 1800s was the social situation. The fact that he currently existed in a time period when women could not legally vote, for example, was a startling realization.

Adding to his intriguing conundrum was the fact that he still had no idea why he had arrived in THIS particular time and place. He racked his brain every day for some sort of reason for Oregon or 1895, and came up with nothing. Was he supposed to stop something from happening? Or instigate something himself? 

As these endless questions played on a loop in his brain, one thing seemed certain to Spencer. His knowledge of history (or maybe the future was more appropriate?) was his greatest asset. He had a golden opportunity to turn his modest teacher salary and corresponding retirement in the 21st century into substantial wealth in the early 20th.

Spencer had done some rough math by lantern light one evening in the cabin he was squatting in outside of town. If he could save aggressively, he figured there was a good chance he could invest in Sears and Roebuck in time to cash in on its meteoric rise in the early 20th century. He did not have a photographic memory, and worried he might be slightly off in his recollection of the timing of its success. Best to play it safe if he got an opportunity, and invest earlier rather than later. If that didn’t work out, there were a couple of other options. Kodak was another company that Spencer recalled was about to take off.

On a slow chilly winter day in the shop, Spencer found himself day-dreaming, watching the swirls of dust drift through the shafts of light piercing the dim interior of the store. It was a long, narrow building, with a copper tile ceiling and creaky wooden stairs at one end that led up to a small landing. On one side of the landing was the door to the store’s office, and on the other the entrance to the small upstairs apartment that Mr. Saunders occupied with his ginger cat, Cleveland.

There was a large window on the landing, which along with the storefront windows, provided most of the daylight for the store, as it was flanked on either side by other merchants. To the north was a hardware store which loosely competed with Mr. Saunders, and to the south was a photo studio which Spencer kept meaning to drop into. He had always been fascinated by the craft, even if he himself was a mediocre photographer. For lovers of history, small town photo studios were a blessing, capturing images of Americana that would have otherwise been undocumented.

Spencer was a member of his local postcard club, which met every month for members to nerd out, trade and sell their favorite postcards, and talk about local history. He had a modest collection himself, mostly of the real photo variety, depicting long-dead Americans at work, hanging out at home, and enjoying their leisure time. The combination of folk photography and history was irresistible to him.

The bell on the door jingled, drawing Spencer back from his daydream. A man in denim pants and a corduroy shirt shuffled in, grabbed a copy of the local paper and scooped a handful of penny candy from a glass jar on top of the glass display case next to the register. The man plunked the candy down on the counter with one rough, calloused hand. Dirt was wedged under the man’s fingernails so far that Spencer doubted it would come out without a fierce scrub with a wire brush.

“Lemme get some tobaccah too please sir,” said the man with the unsophisticated formality of small town America. Spencer reached under the counter and added a pouch of plug tobacco to the pile of candy. 

“Better make it two, please” said the man, spitting a jet of coarse brown liquid into the spittoon on the ground next to the counter. Spencer grimaced and counted out the man’s change. Not only did he find chewing tobacco putrid, he was also responsible for emptying the spittoon every night at closing time. Mr. Saunders had told him he could do it every other day, but the smell of day-old tobacco slurry was enough to turn Spencer’s stomach, and he preferred to do it daily. 

As the man left, Spencer returned to day-dreaming, gazing at the shelves lining the store and towering from floor to ceiling. Cereals, dry beans and oatmeal, rough soaps and household cleaners, and a hundred other products lined the shelves, some with brightly colored logos, but most in simple burlap sacks and relatively plain boxes. Advertising and marketing was catching on fast at the turn of the century, but it was still in its infancy.

Outside, folks walked by in dresses with high necks and long skirts, horse-drawn wagons clopped along, splashing mud and muck as they went. The street was strewn with horse dung, dirty puddles and rotting vegetables thrown out by a grocer across the street. Spencer learned fast that sanitation was not a high priority in the late 1800s. He was glad to be vaccinated against most of the diseases most likely to kill him in 1895. He recalled showing his 10th graders pictures of life in American cities in the early 1900s, including a vivid depiction of the squalid streets of New York, where a random dead horse was simply left in the street after its unfortunate demise.

A group of three farmers came in speaking rapidly in Japanese. Spencer couldn’t understand anything they said, the extent of his Japanese knowledge coming from film and television. He knew “arigato” and “sayonara”. Fortunately, these were the main greetings he needed to work as a store clerk. The men grabbed the items they needed and quickly left. Mr. Saunders came in as they were leaving, carrying a pile of mail from the post office.

“Quiet day?” he asked after a couple minutes of listlessly opening and reading letters.

“Yep.” Spencer said, watching Saunders use a silver letter opener with a bald eagle clutching a shield engraved in the end. 

“You can head home then, see you tomorrow.” A man of few words indeed.

Spencer grabbed his lunch pail, notebook and pencil, and headed out into the late afternoon sun. He turned and started walking briskly down the wooden planked sidewalk, but then stopped, turning to consider the slightly faded sign over his head. It featured a carved rising sun, painted yellow over a pail blue background. Gold leaf letters underneath read “Sunlight Studio - L. Bradley Photographer”.

A light bell tinkled as Spencer opened the door into the studio. It was a brightly lit space, with a skylight cut into the ceiling. There was a large ornate carpet on the ground and several chairs set up close to the wall. A few different cloth backdrops were draped over one of the chairs, a large ornate oak monstrosity that Spencer supposed was there to invoke a regal quality to the surroundings.

Various portraits were set on stands on small tables around the room. Residents of Hood River past and present gazed at him from the photographs. Most wore their Sunday best, but there was an ambitious cowboy here and there. The clunk of a door closing diverted Spencer’s attention to the back of the room, where a small reedy man wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a bowler hat emerged. Mr. Bradley had a wind-swept look about him, but addressed Spencer in a surprisingly booming tone.

“Can I interest you in a photograph sir? I’m about to close up for the day, but I would be happy to fit you in for some portraits. Perhaps the drawing room backdrop?”

Spencer pointed to a plain gray sheet hanging up against the wall. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, can we do one with the sheet that’s already up?”

“Suit yourself!” Bradley busied himself preparing the camera, which was in the corner of the room on a large tripod. Spencer positioned himself on a plain wooden stool. This was clearly not normal practice for Bradley, who likely expected to have to set a mood for his patrons, but he ignored Spencer’s lack of formality. The photographer hesitated before taking the photograph. 

“Should we say a dozen prints? Two dollars for the lot.”

“Sounds swell,” said Spencer grinning to himself. He held that smile as the flash lit up the room.

“Well darn it, I think you were smiling. I should have warned you I was going to take the shot,” said Bradley apologetically. “I can take another.” 

“No need. I can pick them up Friday?” asked Spencer, almost laughing as he remembered that smiling in photos was not yet commonplace.

“Yes indeed, see you then!” boomed Bradley.

Spencer gathered his things and walked out into the darkening street, breathing in a large lungful of cold, fresh winter air. It was a good day to be alive, he thought. In any year. For the first time he found himself wondering if he even wanted to find a way back to the present.

A Dream is Born

Back Story 3 of 3: The Dream is Born

Spencer sat at the rough-hewn wooden table in the cabin, reading the newspaper by lantern light. It had been a week now since he walked into the streets of Hood River, Oregon. By no means a bustling city, the town at least offered basic necessities, and more importantly, work. While he knew he needed to develop a longer term plan eventually, for now Spencer was content with a place to sleep and enough money for food.

He was still walking two miles or so from the cabin to town every day, but knew that eventually the owner of the cabin was likely to show up and kick him out. He was squatting there after all. 

His first stop when he walked into town a week earlier had been the local general store, which boasted a “Help Wanted” sign in the front window. The owner didn’t seem particularly concerned with Spencer’s qualifications, and after a brief conversation showed him around the store, and showed him how to work the large (and gorgeous to Spencer) metal cash register at the front counter. He swept the place, took out the garbage to dump in a pile behind the store, and restocked the shelves.

At night, he pondered his fate, hoping every morning when he woke up that this was just a weird dream. He was no closer to figuring out how or why he was here, or how he might return to the present. Or at least HIS present in 2022. Was time frozen then, or had he merely vanished into thin air? Was anyone looking for him? While he had few answers, there were a number of things that Spencer had been able to glean from his week here:

1. It was November 1895. The date held no significance for him, and despite wracking his brain, he could identify no reason why this year would be important. The time capsule was buried in 1894, so that might be somehow connected.

2. He was in Oregon.

3. This wasn’t the WORST time he could have ended up in, but it wasn’t the best either. He had taught AP US History for years, and had a good understanding of important historical events, but he was always the least interested by the period from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until around the turn of the 20th century. He had a big advantage over someone without a working knowledge of United States history, though.

Spencer had purchased a small notebook and pencil with his first week’s wages, and kept a running journal of all the things he did not know, and thought would be useful to find out:

1. Was there any way to travel back to 2022?

2. Did his actions in 1895 have repercussions for his future self, or the future of other people? He had to imagine, for example, that if his iPhone hadn’t fallen in the river, it would have blown people away had he showed it to them. But what would the consequences of a reckless act like that be?

3. Were there any other stories of strange events happening in town, or people appearing out of nowhere?

4. If he really was stuck here for the rest of his life, how could he make the most of it?

That last question was hard to tackle when Spencer was still in mild shock over his situation. But, he mused, his knowledge of American History had to have some value. If he could buy the right stock, or come up with the right invention, he could be rich eventually, right? At the same time, he was terrified that if he changed 1895 TOO much, it could spiral out of control in any number of ways. What if his early invention of the jet engine changed the outcome of a future world war, or revealing television too early meant the Cold War ended in nuclear holocaust. It was just too hard to predict, and left him searching for a way to acquire future wealth and security that wasn’t too disruptive to the status quo.

While Spencer had never been that obsessed with wealth, he figured if he did end up stuck in time at the turn of the 20th century, having financial means would make it far more tolerable. Perhaps he could leverage money into a search for a way to get home.

Another week passed, with Spencer day-dreaming and scheming while stocking shelves or cleaning up in the general store. His boss had to throw a piece of hard candy at him to break him out of daze now and again. Mr. Saunders, the shop owner, didn’t seem too mad though. He had taken a liking to Spencer, who was only a few years his junior, but seemed willing to work hard without having a big ego about it.

Finally, one sunny winter day in December 1895, the answer was literally delivered to Spencer. He was sweeping up the store, when Mr. Saunders bustled by and asked him to walk down the street to the Post Office to drop off a few letters and bills. As Spencer walked along the wooden sidewalk, he watched horse-drawn carriages and wagons amble down the street, clouds of hot breath pouring from the horses’ nostrils as they dragged their loads of people and goods. 

He arrived at the Post Office and handed the outgoing mail across the counter to Mr. Ebbets, the crusty old postmaster in town. He had large bushy eyebrows and tufts of hair growing out of his ears, and Spencer couldn’t help imagining one of the troll dolls that had been so popular when he was a kid.

“There’s something for the store here, just arrived today,” Ebbets mumbled and rummaged around a canvas bag stuffed full of mail. He took out a thick catalog and handed it across to Spencer, who tucked it under one arm and headed out, thanking the old man as he left.

He walked back down the street, and flipped through the catalog, which was full of illustrations of hundreds of home goods and other products. Suddenly, it was as if a brilliant light bulb had gone off in Spencer’s brain. He flipped to the front cover, already knowing what he would see: Sears, Roebuck and Co. was emblazoned across the front. The company was still in its very early years, and Spencer was fairly certain it would still be affordable to buy a stake in the company. Unless he was very mistaken, by the early 1900s, the company would be worth a small fortune. Anyone who had early shares would be very wealthy…

Given that he knew no one, had no family, and didn’t have television, radio, or the internet to distract him, Spencer decided it was entirely realistic that if he worked hard, he could be truly wealthy in ten years. He fell asleep fantasizing about sitting on a rocky outcropping, perched on the precipice, wearing a bowler hat, and gazing out over a piece of land that was all his. A land where he could build a town that would welcome anyone who wanted to start a new life, who was a weird misfit like himself, or just wanted to live in a beautiful place where they could live without anyone bothering them. An introvert’s dream - that he would create. And with that thought, he fell into a deep and restful sleep for the first time in weeks.

Flipping a Coin

Postmark USA Back Story - Part two of a three part series

Pine branches slapped him in the face, pelting him with ricochets of wet snow, and more than once Spencer slipped and fell in the slush. After a few minutes, he slowed and began to compose himself. He instinctively reached into his pocket for his phone and found it gone, no doubt swallowed by the river. Walking through the darkening woods, Spencer was suddenly much more aware of how cold and wet he was. Dangerously cold.

After wandering for another twenty minutes or so, Spencer saw a small rustic cabin in a clearing ahead. It had a rusty and very old padlock on the door. With a pang of guilt, he smashed the lock with a large rock several times until it snapped off in a shower of sparks.

He peered into the dusty cabin. A rusty old lantern hung on a nail by the door, and there was a small jar full of matches and a piece of sandpaper on a crude wooden table. He lit the lantern and gazed around the rest of the cabin. Given the seemingly remote location, it wasn’t surprising there was no electricity in the cabin. Spencer found a couple of musty blankets and after a glance at the stained bed covered in mouse droppings, looked for a better option. There was a broom in the corner, and he swept a space on the floor, laid down one of the blankets, stripped off his sopping clothes, and pulled the other blanket on top of himself. He was asleep in minutes.

The next morning, a shaft of sunlight crept across the room, eventually waking Spencer from a restless sleep. He pulled the rough blanket up to his chin. It did little to mute the cold air, and swirls of his frozen breath swirled in the cabin along with the dust coming off the blanket. His mind wandered as he watched them mix in the shaft of sunlight coming through the cabin’s one window.

While his sleep had not been deep, it had been enough to clear his mind. Where the hell was he? He sat up, stiff and sore from sleeping on the floor in the cold, but otherwise unharmed. After starting a small fire in the fireplace, he stumbled outside to see a beautiful blue sky. It was cold enough that the snow squeaked and crunched under his feet as he walked a ways down the forest path. His footprints from the night before were coated in a thin layer of fresh flakes, soft ghosts of their former selves. He retraced his steps back to the river and splashed some frigid water on his face, then drank a few mouthfuls. 

The cold air jolted him further awake, and Spencer dusted some fluffy snow off of a log and sat down. Several things about yesterday troubled him. While the blackout and loss of memory were extremely disturbing, so were the looks on the faces of the men who had pulled him from the river. They looked like witnesses to a crime who were afraid to tell their story, or perhaps had bad news that they were reluctant to share.

Spencer saw a small column of smoke rising from a clearing near the edge of the river, and headed in that direction. He was pleased to see the two men from the day before huddled around a steaming metal pot over a cookfire. They were wearing thick denim coats that appeared to be lined with wool. Their tent was a large piece of canvas draped over a rope tied between two trees. While the corners were staked out with pieces of rough twine, it was clear these dudes were roughing it out here. One man was blonde and the other had dark hair, and both had impressive beards. They looked to be in their fifties or sixties. Spencer was reminded of old Western films that were always playing on the old Magnavox TV at his grandparents’ house when he used to visit them as a kid.

“How’s it going y’all?” Stewart shouted as he approached their camp.

The men looked a bit apprehensive and exchanged a quick look at each other that did not go unnoticed by Spencer. One man glanced at a pair of antique hunting rifles leaning against a tree, but he made no move towards them.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt your breakfast, I just wanted to say thanks again for helping me out of the river yesterday. To be honest, I have no idea how I got there. I must have hit my head or something. Pretty shaken up right now. Did y’all see anything before pulling me out? Was I in a boat? Swimming?”

“You from the South?” asked the darker haired man, seemingly ignoring Spencer’s question.

Spencer laughed, “No sir, I’m from Chicago, well the suburbs at least.”

“Hmmm, I never heard of Suburbs, is it a big town?”

“Not really.” Spencer was now looking at the man in earnest. Maybe he wasn’t the brightest.

The blonde man piped in, “My cousin down in Texas is Scots-Irish, and he’s the only one I ever heard say “y’all.”

“If you’re from Chicago, how did you end up all the way out here in Oregon?” the dark haired man asked. Spencer tried mostly unsuccessfully to hide his shock at this revelation, and the men exchanged another quick glance at each other as if his reaction unsettled them further.

“Oregon?!” Spencer ran a hand over his face and settled shakily onto a rock near the campfire.

“Sir, you don’t have any idea how you got here, do you?” asked the blonde man. Spencer slowly shook his head. “Do you have anywhere to go, or any money?” He shook his head again.

Spencer had a strong sense that while the men were perfectly kind and helpful, they were not eager to continue to talk with him. Something had them spooked, and he didn’t want to linger and overstay his welcome. “I think I’m going to head into the nearest town and try to sort this out. Can you please point me in the right direction?”

“Just follow the river about two miles that way, and you’ll come to Hood River,” said the dark haired man. “And here, hopefully this will get you back on your feet,” he said as he flipped a silver dollar towards Spencer, who caught it and pocketed the coin. 

“Thanks, I really appreciate all of your help.”

“No problem sir, and good luck to you. Just got my war pension payment, and I’m happy to help another man in need.” He patted a stiff leg as if to thank his wounded limb for its service.

“Desert Storm?” Spencer inquired.

The man looked slightly confused, but responded with “Antietam,” and gave Spencer a somber wink.

As Spencer trudged away, the blonde man whispered to his friend, “Should we tell him about the light we saw before we found him in the river?”

“Hell no, people already think we’re crazy enough, you want to get that rumor started? Besides, it might have just been the sun reflecting off of something.” The other man looked dubious. They both knew what they saw, but didn’t pursue the subject further.

Spencer returned to the cabin, which was cozy after being warmed by the fire for a bit. He was still confused and disoriented from the events of the last 24 hours, and his head suddenly felt like it was filled with cotton balls. Angry at himself for not asking to share breakfast with the men, and stomach grumbling, he absentmindedly took the coin out of his pocket and started flipping it in the air with a flick of his thumb. It was only on the third or fourth flip that he recognized the slightly different “ping” of the coin. He had handled old coins with his grandfather, who was an avid collector, and recognized the distinctive sound that a solid silver coin made. He snatched the coin out of mid air and examined it. Spencer was stunned to find himself looking at a Morgan silver dollar, and even more shocked when he read the date on the coin - 1893.

And then a torrential, nauseating wave of realization pierced his foggy brain. He thought back to the men’s antique rifles and camping gear, and then looked around the cabin. No outlets, no modern fixtures, no plastic candy wrappers or empty soda cans. The comment about Antietam that Spencer had taken to be a history joke. He scrambled outside and looked up at the bright blue crisp morning sky. Not a plane to be seen, and no trailing exhaust vapor either. 

Spencer sank to the ground. He was pretty sure that somehow, incredibly, he was in the 1800s.

To be continued…

The Light in the River

Postmark, USA Back Story - Part one of a three part series

Spencer Reed pulled into the high school parking lot where he worked, blasting Offspring’s “Smash” at full volume. As he pulled into a parking space, two students walked by. One rolled their eyes and said something to the other, who laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, go make a TikTok or something,” Spencer muttered under his breath as he grabbed his satchel and sack lunch from the passenger seat, knocking a couple empty bottles of Mountain Dew onto the dirty floor of the car as he did. His wife had always chided him to clean up his messy car, and he knew she was right, but now she was gone, and so was the reminder to clean up after himself. 

It wasn’t that he was a slob on purpose, or willfully disorganized. It was just that his damn brain was always full of random thoughts, and the daily struggle to focus on what everyone else thought was important was a monumental task on a good day.

He brushed past students chattering in the halls, and unlocked the door to his classroom. His planning period was first thing in the morning this semester, which was fine with him. Spencer was a morning person, most awake right after jumping out of bed. He settled into his somewhat uncomfortable and incessantly creaky desk chair and mostly ignored Principal Stevens as she read the morning announcements. One caught his attention though, and caused him to swear under his breath. 

“And just a reminder, we will be opening the time capsule from the 1800s today at 3:30 by the flagpole at the front entrance of the school. Our own Mr. Reed will do the honors of opening the box, so don’t miss it!” The nerdy part of Spencer was excited to see what was in the box, but he also totally forgot that he had promised to give a speech and lead the festivities after school today.

Two weeks earlier, while researching a lesson plan in the school’s library, Spencer had made a fascinating discovery. A small newspaper article, no doubt torn from the local newspaper decades earlier, had dropped to his desk while he was leafing through a book about the American Civil War. The book clearly hadn’t been opened in years, and Spencer wouldn’t have opened it either if he hadn’t been looking for a passage to use to explain historical perspective and historiography to his AP US History class.

The article, dated 1894, read:

This week, Lincoln High School’s history club will bury a box of momentos and curios for a future generation to unearth. They will host an event out in front of the school at 3:30 PM sharp. We are assured it will be a real lally-cooler, so bring a chum and come watch the festivities! Bring something to include in the box if you feel so inclined. The bottom fact is this could be the event of the month, and in 1994 future students will be amazed and amused by our treasures!

Spencer had looked up “lally-cooler” on his phone, and chuckled. He enjoyed making his students’ eyes roll by using period slang, and his favorite was describing things as the “bee’s knees!” when talking about the 1920s. He wondered if the time capsule had been unearthed in 1994, and asked Mr. Hurt, the oldest teacher at the school, if he remembered any such event. Mr. Hurt, buried in his copy of the New York Times in the teachers’ lounge, had merely grunted and shaken his head no.

It took Spencer an hour or so of poking around with a shovel in the flower bed around the flagpole to find a medium-sized brass box. Despite his curiosity, he did not open it, and instead set off for the main office to tell the principal to set up an event. That was two weeks ago, and as usual he had procrastinated when he could have easily had the speech written days earlier.

The rest of the day passed quickly, and by the time 3:30 rolled around, Spencer was exhausted, but relatively happy with the written address he had penciled out for the event. A decent crowd of 50 or so curious students and teachers braved the chill afternoon air to see what was in the capsule. They patiently listened to Spencer’s mildly uninspired speech about appreciating history and our past, and then huddled around the box as he pried it open. He wore gloves not just because it was cold, but also to make it seem like he knew something about preserving historical artifacts. (This was barely true.)

Lying on top of the pile of items inside was a cardboard-backed black and white photo of about ten teens, with “Lincoln High History Society - 1894” scrawled in penciled cursive. Spencer flipped it over and saw that the students had all signed the photo, and smiled. It was pretty cool imagining the kids adding their items one at a time to the brass box over 100 years ago. Their capsule missed its 100th birthday, but at least it got some belated attention.

As the students and teachers pulled out and examined notes, trinkets, photos, coins, and other items from the box, Spencer’s eye was drawn to a small yellowed paper envelope near the bottom. He picked it up and stepped back from the crowd a bit to give himself some light. In the hubbub of examining the contents of the box, no one paid him much attention.

Written in neat script on the front was this note:

I pass this on from shackled hand

Trapped in time, a lonely man

Beware its power, and know this

I dare not whisper, even hiss

For if I plainly share its power

I surely can’t predict the hour

Or date, or place or even year

Where I will travel on from here

Spencer felt a small heavy object in the envelope and took off one of his gloves to tear the envelope open. He wasn’t a superstitious person, and pretty much ignored the cryptic poem. He tipped the object into his gloved hand and examined what appeared to be a rather large solid silver coin. It was oddly heavy and was covered in strange symbols and letters that he had never seen before. He flipped the coin over and ran his ungloved fingers over the raised markings on the reverse side. Brilliant shining light assaulted his eyes, so powerful that he was immediately disoriented. The coin began to rapidly spin in his hand, and then the world went black.

_______________

Samuel Jenkins was one of those men who looked 70 when he scowled, and 40 when he smiled. He was actually 54 years old, and he scowled often because of a lingering war wound in his leg that bothered him constantly. He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small metal flask, tipped it to his lips, and drank a swallow. It would help the pain for a few hours. He lounged in the back of a small wooden fishing boat, he was mostly there as a counterweight while his friend Clarence stood in the front, lazily casting a fishing line out into the river. Their boat was loosely anchored on some rocks in the middle of the stream of water, so there wasn’t much danger of Clarence falling in, but the water was ice cold, and it wasn’t worth the risk.

Suddenly, a brilliant light appeared as if from nowhere, right in front of Clarence. He stumbled backwards into the middle of the boat, and Samuel had to shift himself suddenly to keep the craft from capsizing. 

“What the actual hell is that?!” Clarence gasped as he got unsteadily back to his feet. Samuel just shook his head, at a loss for words. The orb of light was only about the size of a large apple, but brighter than anything he had ever seen. The day’s sun seemed dull and muted by comparison. 

Overcome by curiosity, Clarence slowly reached out with the fishing pole and tried to prod the light. The rod passed through it. He leaned closer, shielding his eye from the brightness. He saw what appeared to be a small sphere at the center of the bright aura. It looked like a metal disc or coin revolving at an almost blinding speed.

He reached out to nudge the coin with his hand, still somewhat inexplicably holding the fishing rod, as if it offered some kind of protection from his reckless inquisitiveness. The instant his skin came in contact with the coin, the light was extinguished, seemingly swallowed by the swirling rapids of the river. Clarence fell backwards in shock yet again when a man bobbed up out of the river, coughing and sputtering and blindly reaching out. Without thinking, both men in the boat scrambled forward and pulled the hapless man up into the boat. Icy water poured off of him and their hands slipped, the man sliding back into the frigid water. The boat became dislodged from the rocks in the middle of the water, and began drifting away.

The man, wild-eyed and panicked, swam for land. Clarence and Samuel managed to steer the boat back to shore, but by the time they felt the bottom of the boat scrape the river bank, the mysterious man was running and stumbling into the woods a couple of hundred feet away, glancing back furtively as he ran.

To be continued….

Kickstarter project delivery!

Way back in the olden days of 2012, I decided that I should use Kickstarter to fund a book project I was working on. I go to a decent amount of postcard shows, and have a dozen or so amazing books of real photo postcards, and so I have seen some amazing images. There are two things that these wonderful books don’t always capture, though,

First, beautifully curated collections of postcards sometimes hide the thrill of the hunt. Postcard collectors, or collectors of any stripe for that matter, know what I’m talking about. You’re rifling through a box of faintly musty postcards, looking for those elusive images that will be perfect for your collection. Suddenly, there it is. A card you are thrilled to have, and even better - it’s reasonably priced. The collection I wanted to showcase in my book took years to assemble through this process. Any wealthy person can go buy some $100+ cards to fill out their collection, and while I don’t begrudge them their acquisitions, I wonder if they miss that thrill of organic discovery sometimes.

Second, the books I love to look through don’t always capture average folks. In other words, they are filled with rare cards, showing extraordinary events. I sought to make a book that featured average Americans at work, at home, and enjoying leisure time. All of the cards are carefully selected, but many cost me only a dollar or two. It’s a collection an average postcard seeker could build.

A successful project launch and 70+ Kickstarter backers later, I was excited to send my project to the printer. The results were disheartening. Through a combination of underestimating my budget, poor quality printing, and probably a healthy dose of inexperience on my part, the book looked mediocre at best. The postcards were washed out and grainy. The vibrant images lost a lot of their impact in translation to print.

Fast forward nearly ten years, several moves, a career change, one child, and many other distractions. I thought about my failure to deliver on my project all the time, and it weighed on me. Finally, after our most recent move, I decided enough was enough. I got a much better scanner, started from scratch and the book is way better than the one I finished in 2013. In fact, the print quality is far better these days too. The project is off to the printer now, and should be delivered in a matter of a couple of weeks. I hope to have the book in backers’ hands by the end of August.

While I have a couple more big projects in mind, I learned a lot from this process. Most of all, next time I try to sell something as big as a book project, it will already be done and I will have a test copy in my hands that I’m happy with before I launch!