Inside the box ...

Ever have one of those moments where you feel like you've walked onto the set of a movie?

No, I'm not talking about wandering around on Birnie Street and inadvertently stepping into the scenes of "Walker" that were filmed in Gaffney. I mean, you ever have one of those times where things seem like they can't possibly be really happening?

I had one of those moments on Thursday. It was like somebody handed me a script and a director yelled, "Action!" A lady named Carol Hutnick had come to see me on Wednesday afternoon and mentioned that she had found this box on the side of the road in Blacksburg. She said she thought it was important, but she didn't have time to show me right now.

Dutifully, I listened, and nodded, and finally said, "Sure, okay, go get the box and come back to see me on Thursday about 2 p.m."

Look, I love this job, as just about everyone knows, but sometimes working at a community newspaper is a bit of a circus. We get all kinds of people calling us, or 'just dropping by' to bring us the latest or greatest story. I'm sure that your prize-winning pineapple-upside-down-cake recipe SEEMS like big news to you and your family, but that doesn't necessarily mean we want to write about it in our paper. The same goes for your gold medal-winning fleas in your flea circus, or even your ingrown toenail that looks like Elvis.

I should make a little clarification on that pineappleupside down-cake recipe. If you win first place in the Peach Festival dessert contest with a peach-upside-down-cake, we probably will put it in our paper. Sometimes a dessert story is too sweet to miss.

Anyway, we get some strange requests to write about some strange topics. That's exactly what I thought was going to happen with this box.

Initially I thought she was just going to forget about me and not bring it by on Thursday. Thank goodness Carol remembered me and brought that box. If you've read the article on Page 1A, you know how this all turned out. If you haven't, go read it.

No, seriously, I'll wait...done? Okay.

Yeah, it turns out that the box was pretty danged old. I mean, it must have been 60 - 70 years old. And the stuff inside? It was incredibly old. There were photographs from the 1800s in that box. And a map of the French Quarter in New Orleans, circa 1950. There was a punched ticket from a plantation in Williamsburg, Va., also from the 1950s. And countless photographs from all over the country from various eras.

Whoever the box belonged to, and it was most likely a lady named Myrtis LeBlanc Quinn, they were certainly welltraveled. There are souvenir photos from Mexico, Detroit, New York City, Chicago - the list goes on and on.

There's a beautiful shot of a gorgeous blonde from 1945, who performed at a nightclub in Detroit and autographed a photo signed "Honey, Here's the pic I promised you. You won't believe it but I've gained so much weight. I'd love one of you, too, hon, Bernice."

If she has gained weight, she must keep it in a trunk somewhere. That picture is of a real knockout. And she's probably long dead by now.

Most of the things in the box are like that. They're so old that the people, and in the case of New Orleans, some of the buildings aren't even there anymore. And somehow this was just going to get thrown out.

It just goes to show, you can't judge a book, or even a box, by it's cover.

And that's some good news...

(Scott Baughman writes feature and enterprise stories for The Gaffney Ledger. You can contact him via e-mail at scottb@ gaffneyledger.com)