Everyone is missed.

http://www.largestnationalpark.com/history.html

“Well, the weeks went by and spring turned to summer
and summer faded into fall
and it turns out he was a missing person
who nobody missed at all.”

"Goodbye Earl" - DIXIE CHICKS

Ghost towns of the American west were the topic she picked for her final project. There were hundreds of ghost towns; she read, between Alaska and California and Clara thought they will be an excellent choice for research and an excuse for a long journey.

She planned to start in the north, at the beginning of the spring and work her way south so by late fall she will be ready to return east with enough material to work on, during the winter, in her small congested apartment in Manhattan.

What can be learned from a town that once was alive and now the wind flow uninterrupted in and out of broken windows, from a whole town that transformed over the years into a Handyman special- a fixer –upper. She was not interested in the ruins; the research she planned was about people. That what her instructor in the course did not fully appreciate when she presented her plan all flushed with excitement.

“Everything that had to be said about this piece of old history was said already,” that was his dry response to her long and detailed proposal. “From you especially, I expected something more original.” He ended the short meeting quickly, and it was obvious that he was not supportive of her choice yet stuck to his no 1.  Rule; let the students learn from their mistakes.

Was that just a big mistake, she was wondering about it while packing for the journey and three days later after of long flights and endless hours of bone-breaking ride on dirt roads, she arrived at her first destination. It was the middle of May and the days in Alaska were already getting long; she knew that, yet nothing prepared her when the jeep finally stopped, at ten at night, to the colors. The land of the midnight sun, she repeated the words in her head forcing herself to go to sleep in spite of her bubbling excitement.

***

The sun was just rising when Clara stepped into the main street of the town. It augmented the color of the buildings from dull discolored red to a burning blaze. The main street was nothing but a railroad track and on both sides dirt. The houses were lined, in straight rows along this vein that when it died took away the town’s life.  

She really have to stop using words that resemble a living body, that will tarnish the objectivity of her research and prove that her instructor, his voice she could still hear in her head, was correct when he warned her against picking a topic that was in so many ways a cliché.

There must be a way to catch the spirit of a place while still alive and the desperation in the final days when it becomes apparent to everyone that a death sentence was signed and sealed. Her plan was to locate one or two stories of people who lived in the town and through their life illuminate the experience of being uprooted from your life by external forces.

Clara was not sure why she picked this town to start with, maybe because its existence was so short, only twenty -seven years, or perhaps because the town’s life was revolving around making money quickly and shrewdly. This place was not about heritage and family life and building. It was about exploiting the earth and making tons of money in the process.

Or was that the full picture?

When she saw the listing in a book about American history, it moved her in a strange way.

Coordinates: Latitude 60.75 & Longitude 142.00.
Population: Ghost town.

Really! She remembers her first reaction, that what the 800 people who lived there at the time amounted to?

Later she found that most of the structures were still there, taken care by the park service.  Forty buildings; including a hospital, with a dental office, an elementary school, recreation hall, a silent movie theater, ballpark, skating rink, tennis court, and even a dairy.

In November 1938, when the copper began to play out, the miners were getting restless. The Miming Company told everyone “You have two hours to pack your things and board the last train out.” Everything was abandoned, personal belongings and mining equipment.

When the sun rose high over the mammoth ore processing building, she stopped and watched the colors fading slowly.

She thought she could still hear the pounding of the mill, smell the ammonia from the leaching plant, and feel the vibration of the shaker tables.

And then in the corner of her eye she caught something white and fluttering and ignoring the signs posted by the park service, bent and picked a small piece of white paper.

It was a drawing by a small child, the classic house, a rectangle covered by a red roof. Two windows with the curtains tied in big knots. The door half open was leading to a semicircular entrance way, ending with a white picket fence and a cat. There was even a stick figure in the far right corner, a man to judge from the hat on his head. Looking at the drawing she felt how a big smile is forming inside her. She did not even had to read the few scribbled words at the bottom; she knew she found her missing person.

She was right, no one, no matter how detached and shrewd is completely lost. This one person, whom the drawing was made for, was missed.