Today I was able to get up close and personal with several of the artifacts from the USS Monitor. The incredible range and array of things recovered from this ship continues to boggle my mind, despite the fact that I work with it all the time. Sadly, though, I spend more of my time poring over words on a page rather than the artifacts themselves. But today was different.

I had my consultants and designer folks with me today, and we were beginning the intense process of deciding where in the exhibition all of these items should go. Before we went too far, though, I thought it prudent to go look at the artifacts themselves - crusty though many of them may be as they undergo the long process of conservation - and let the artifacts tell us where they should go.

It's commonplace for our conservators and collections management folks to touch these things all the time and develop a kinship and familiarity with the artifacts. For me it's different. My job demands different things, thus my contact with the artifacts is less common - more like a first date each time.

I find them all incredibly beautiful. The most commonplace block and tackle, the most humble piece of oakum is imminently incredible to me. The engine register - engraved as it is with the very name of the ship ( a magical thing in itself) never fails to lift my spirits and bring a shiver to me.

I lifted an officer's boot out of it's holding tank this afternoon - a boot that was likely thrown off in the last desperate minutes of the ship when it became obvious that going into the water was a distinct possibility and whoever the owner was, he parted with the thing gladly, even though it had surely cost him some money on a better day. The boot would have dragged him down as surely as could be. Of course - if it belonged to the man we think it did - his sacrifice of his fine boot was in vain, since he dissappeared with the vessel that night 141 years ago December.

Ah - I'm rambling. But it was just one of those days that I need every once in awhile. A day in which only the joy of being a historian matters. The joy of discovery and of connecting with an event of long ago and thus helping to bring the lives of the men involved into clearer focus - to bring them to life for the present.

I love days like this.....