Large Fierce Mammal

In his About.com article on the subject of disappearing objects, paranormal phenomenon investigator Stephen Wagner does a thorough job of cataloguing the various possible explanations for a type of occurrence we’ve all experienced – something disappears and then later returns not only to the exact place we remember putting it, but most maddenly of all, we find it in the first place we looked. Most of the time these events have perfectly mundane answers … but then there are those other times. Today I’ll give you two examples from my personal experience.

Now you see it – now you don’t … and then you do! My knife was identical to this but with one less accessory – I bought it in 1975 before the “parcel hook” (on the bottom to the left of the cork screw) was added. I no longer have that knife, having parted ways over a bad choice of trousers. Another story entirely.

Back around 1979, I was helping my father lay linoleum in a room on the second floor of the old family homestead in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. We were nearly done and decided to take a coffee break before finishing the fine cuts in the two doorways.

If you’ve ever been involved in laying any kind of flooring, you’ll know it normally involves a completely empty room. Such was the case on the day I speak of, and just before we convinced ourselves to replenish our caffien blood levels there were four tools lying on the floor in front of the first doorway that needed trimming:

• a metal square;
• a tape measure;
• a linoleum knife and; most important of all;
• my red handled Victorinox Swiss Army Knife.

I carried that knife daily and made it a policy to never leave it behind so, after standing up and heading for the coffee I naturally did a mental inventory that reminded me of my knife. I turned to retrieve it only to find that it was no longer among those tools I just listed. I went through the usual dance of rechecking the pocket where it usually lived, then others in case I had experienced a brain fart – no dice. Next I checked other parts of the room including window sills, and even involved my father in the search. Still missing.

Neither of us had left the room, I had a mental snapshot of the floor as I stood up to take that break that clearly showed the juxtaposition of all four items, and yet seconds later one was gone.

My father broke the spell with a favourite line of his, “When the Devil’s done with it, he’ll bring it back.”

So we went downstairs, drank our coffee, and returned to the job to find all four tools – including my Swiss Arm Knife – lying in front of the door exactly as I remembered them. I guess the Devil got his cutting done while we were on break.

Five years later comes a story of disappearing, or possibly misdirected, space, in which parts of physical objects remained in plain sight while other parts of them, though still connected to the whole, didn’t go where they should have gone.

In the winter of 1984, my father was assisting me with the installation of a fire alarm system in Lunenburg’s Boscawen Inn. The inn was closed for the season, all heat was off, and the inside temperature was so low that we had to go outside to warm up.

Boscawen Inn as she looks today, restored to her Victorian Splendour. Click the image to enlarge. (Photo credit: Boscawen Inn)

Originally a mansion built and bestowed as a wedding gift by Senator H.A.N. Kaulbach to his daughter Edna on her marriage to James R. Rudolf, the beautiful edifice later became a hotel that went for many years by the name of Boscawen Manor. Over the years the house went to seed, and an addition was built to increase room capacity.

Rescue came when the house was acquired by antique dealer Leslie Langille who, equipped with original construction plans drawn by Halifax architect Henry Bush in 1888, set about a complete restoration to former Victorian magnificence. It was this that resulted in my being called upon to design an up to date fire alarm system for what had become Boscawen Inn, and led to my father and me spending a chilly six weeks there putting it all together.

I’m experienced in marrying high tech equipment with historic buildings. Such things cannot be rushed, and as the process continues with any project I’ve found the relationship with a historic structure can take on the overtones of lovemaking as one explores every hidden passage. Painstaking as it was, nothing in the Boscawen Inn job raised an eyebrow until one Friday.

If you examine the photo of Boscawen Inn you will see a low roof line on the left that connects to a slightly higher one. That lower roof line overlies the attic of the newer extension, and the one it connects to that’s slightly higher is the interface with the original mansion. On the Friday I speak of, I was kneeling in the attic under the lower roof, boring through to the interface portion while my father stood on that side awaiting my breakthrough.

I was in possession of the original plans, and I was completely aware that, unlike today when builders are bound by iron clad project specifications, my Lady was built by artisans for whom construction plans were simply intended as a guide. Hence, no measurement taken from the plan could be expected to perfectly match reality, so a following artist needs must get into the heads of those who came before. I had done my homework and had complete confidence my 36 inch pilot bit would bridge the calculated 14 inch void between my attic and the one my father waited in, and come out exactly where I expected – except it didn’t.

I drilled through the inch thick Hemlock plank wall on my side and felt the tip of my bit come free “into the wind” as my Father used to say. Pushing forward a not unsurprising 14 inches or so, I hit another solid obstruction, naturally assuming it to be the wall of the attic on my Father’s side. Calling out to him to stand clear, I drilled another inch before my bit hit wind again and I pushed ahead until the chuck of my drill ran up against the wall. My father reported that he could clearly hear me drilling through the wall, but couldn’t see the tip of the bit on his side.

Speaking horizontally, the width of the space I was in, and the one my Father occupied, was such that it would take an error in yards to miss my mark, so my next thought was that there might be an unforeseen difference in floor elevation making it higher on my Father’s side, and I might be popping out under that floor out of sight. And so I drilled another hole a foot higher and directly above the first with the same sensations on my part and identical results for my Father — he could hear me coming but still couldn’t see my bit. Another foot higher — same outcome.

Even after multiple re-measurements and six further attempts at intervals of a foot, out to three feet to the right and left of my second and higher hole, there was no sign I was going to drill through to my target.

Well, you know, it was after 3:00 PM on Friday at the end of a long cold week. I declared a down tools, stating that the hole would be just as well drilled Monday as today, and we headed off to consume something medicinal.

Monday dawned crisp and clear, and the first thing on my mind was that fucking hole. Arriving on site, the first thing I did with my freshly caffeinated mind was remeasure everything I did on Friday. Not unexpectedly, everything was as anticipated and so, as my father watched from the target side, I climbed to the attic, installed an 8 foot bit, and fed it into the very first hole I had drilled on Friday.

14 inches later, my father told me he saw the bit, and subsequent measurements on both sides proved that there was no reason it should not have been thus in the beginning.

So where did it go? I have always pictured a place light years away where people were amazed one Friday as a spinning drill bit popped unexpectedly through a wall. I’m just glad it didn’t come back with blood on it.