A Window Into the Attic

The history of a small Midwestern town -- the lumberjack river town of Mora in east-central Minnesota, for example -- is like a large, imposing, weathered house. Look up at the small attic window tucked beneath the eaves. Imagine opening that window. You might find a rack of clothes: crinoline, perhaps, or a bonnet, maybe a Civil War uniform. You might find stacks of newspapers, yellowed and mice-nibbled now, but immediate in their day. Perhaps a wedding is described in those pages, or an election, or a suicide. Not as history, but as something that had happened that very week.

You might find ghosts.