Chapter 4

I was a good boy on Monday, I didn’t spend my time exploring secret passages. Instead I took a bike ride to the local library and did research. We finally had a utility bill with my last name on it, and my ID card from our last state, which was enough for a library card. I browsed the stacks for a bit, then asked about doing research on the family whose house I now lived at.

Their one hundred ninety years of newspapers had first been archived to microfiche, then later digitized for searching. The digitized search part had been via ocr about ten years ago, so it wasn’t great, but it could help you locate the right paper. From there you just had to read the right page.

County records had shown a Hiram Peterson as the previous owner, so I started there. There was a ding for that name at the end of 2020 when the county announced the auction. A death notice in 2015, with a brief biography. The guy was a hundred and two when he died, I guess he really was old man Peterson, born in 1912.

A note about him turning 100 in 2012, and another note mentioning him turning 90 in 2002. I guess the newspaper liked keeping track of their oldest readers. Must have been counting down the days until they could go all digital and paper free.

I kept going back till I found a note that he had been hospitalized in 1978 after losing his left arm in an accident. There was a suggestion in the article that he would be recovering at a nearby sanatorium. A 1962 article marked him as the only survivor of his deceased brother Marshall Peterson, born 1926.

1958 announced his retirement and return to town from Princeton as professor of mathematics. It noted he had been a working companion of Einstein until his death in 1955. A 1951 article mentions the passing of his father, and his mother in 1947.

1938 mentioned he had become a junior professor at Princeton, and 1929 mentioned his being accepted at Princeton, after an early graduation. A minor notice of an academic award from the governor made the paper in 1925, and his birth announcement was published April 4th, 1912.

An entire life in reverse.

There was a minor surprise when I discovered a second Hiram Peterson, one of the founders of the local paper, and one of his great grandparents. He had a much bigger obituary in 1847.

We were much too far from Princeton to do any research about the institution in the local paper. I’d have to go online for that. There was something wrong with the library WiFi, so I decided I’d head home and use my own for further research.

I knew that a number of Princeton scientists had been recruited during the time he was there for the Manhattan project. I wondered if he had been involved in it at all. Even if he hadn’t been, he would have personally known many of the greats who had been brought together for that project.

The local burger joint, called Burger Queen, insisted that I couldn’t take my bicycle thru the drive thru, so I headed in, and ended up eating lunch inside too. Air-conditioning is addictive on hot summer days. In three weeks I’d get my driver’s license, but having a car would probably still take a while.

My agreement with my Dad was that when we finished the first floor he’d give me 4k to add to my own savings to purchase a car with. I’d end up with something ok enough to get back and forth to school and occasional trips to Summerville, which was starting to sound like Rome. All roads lead to Summerville.

I spent the rest of the afternoon painting.

Tuesday I was reassembling the dining room furniture when my phone buzzed to show me a really hot UPS worker bringing me presents from Amazon. I rushed to the door to open it just as she knocked. I thanked her for the delivery she dropped on the covered porch, and watched as those amazing legs, tight ass in brown shorts, and that blond ponytail bounced back down the walk to the big brown delivery truck. I’d have to save the video from the doorbell so I could watch the bounce as she came up the steps.

I carried my packages inside and began unpacking. I verified I had everything, then put it away in my room. I had to get back to the dining table, because if I forgot where I was in the assembly instructions, it would never be a dining table again.

I eventually successfully rebuilt, with no extra pieces, a ten piece dining set that filled the room. We had decided it would fit better in the moving truck if we had disassembled it. I had briefly regretted that decision when a crucial part had gone temporarily missing.

Table, sideboard, two captain chairs with arms, and six straight back guest chairs. I opened up the box with the dining fabrics. I’m not sure what they are called exactly but I know how Mom always laid it out.

I couldn’t resist and set out the serving dishes on the sideboard table, and the candelabra in the center of the dining table. It looked good, so I took a picture and texted it to Dad.

I checked the time, he wasn’t due back till very late, so I headed up to my room, and collected the equipment. It took a bit to figure out the harness, carabiner, and rope as I tied it around the chimney, and tossed it down the shaft. I snapped a chemical light, and dropped it down the hole as well. It hit bottom faster than I expected, but was not nearly as bright as it should have been.