Written By Dr. Brenda Brueggemann

I’m not a very patient person and my attention span has some challenges since I’m always thinking of (way too many) projects and ideas at any one moment.  And so:  I’m not a Good Person in the Archives.

I knew that already about myself.  I had tried it before with numerous (significant and scintillating but still abandoned) Deaf studies/history projects in the past.  Sure, I’m trained with a PhD in the philosophy, theory, and practice of the ancient art of Rhetoric,  So, in essence, I had all the “basic skills” to do this kind of work. On paper.  

But my imagination has always wanted to overtake the archives, to fuss with the fact-finding, and to dog the detailed and deliberate march through The Records in pursuit of Historical Truths.  I would always get impatient and distracted, my storytelling self taking over the driver’s seat down the archives highway, eating up the rest of the bag of chips.  

Being in and “doing” the MTS archival work was hard on me then, needless to say.

I was cold in there – all the time.  Both physically and probably also a little spiritually.  The air conditioning was overwhelming in the summer and then dead-air damp chill saturated the space in the winter. The closed-in feeling was quite claustrophobic. The Connecticut State Library (CSL) archivists were watching us all the time –and that surveillance rubbed on my edges.  My mind wandered, a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about:  the chocolate peanut butter granola protein bar I’d left in my backpack at  the locker outside the archives; or the abandoned deli in the corner of our window view at the Connecticut State Library Archives warehouse location in near-downtown Hartford, CT. (possibilities of a good grilled cheese sandwich haunted me at every visit); or the red comb someone had left in the bathroom there (that had now been there for over a year of our visits); or the Colt Gun Factory exhibit on the CSL Archives meeting room wall;  or the rickety-rickety old school rolling-fenced gate that chugged its way  back, so very slowly, to let us into the dilapidated and patchy asphalt “parking lot” at the archives; or the parents and kids at the school right next to the archives building who convened for pickup in mid-afternoon (and wouldn’t then allow us exit from the archives at that time).  I was distracted.

But then again, I wasn’t.  I was also finely focused, riveted, operating on High Purpose.  

I reveled in (and largely remembered) the remarkable details of almost every team conversation we had within the CSL Archives.  I came to know everyone’s favorite snack options.  The community we created in the archives –doing this work, together, and troubled, and important, and a little terrified – these are the things I most take away from (and with) it.