I've always been obsessed with time, so naturally I'm fascinated with stories of time travel or actual artifacts from the past. While I'm more accustomed to tangible artifacts like old coins or books or photographs, these recordings are definitely artifacts of the past, too. I clicked here to hear the Gettysburg Address eyewitness speak, but also found myself drawn into the "Cigar Stories" about "El Lector" who would read to the working people.

This piece was my "Lector" tonight. It occupied my mind while I performed the semi-mindless data entry portion of my overnight job. Thanks to the producers, and to this PRX site in general, which keeps me awake and thinking throughout the night.

I will look for this book!

Hi, I'm typing this from the front desk of the King & Prince Beach & Golf Resort on lovely St. Simons Island, Georgia. It's a few minutes after 5:00 AM on my shift as Night Auditor. I'm here until 7:00 AM.

I don't drink coffee but I do get plenty of caffeine from tea. My tea and listening to pieces like this on PRX are what get me through the night, when I'm not checking in late-arriving guests, sending Security to investigate noise complaints, or doing the Accounting spreadsheets. This is a 194-room upscale resort property with several buildings. By day, our staff levels probably range between 40-70 people. At night, the hotel staff shrinks to a mere two people: me and the Security officer. I'm the switchboard operator, the front desk clerk, and the nerve center of the hotel, and the Security guy is my eyes, arms, and legs, so to speak. Unfortunately we don't have an all-night Maintenance guy, so if a toilet backs up in the middle of the night, Security has to fetch a plunger. If something goes wrong with a guest's room, my only option is to move them to another one.

By around the midpoint of my shift (3:00 AM) most of the drunks have all passed out and things get quiet. Yes, even in upscale four- and five-star hotels you will still find plenty of drunks late at night. Probably just as many as you'd see in the low-end dives. Our drunks are dressed a little better and drive nicer cars, but they're just as obnoxious.

Unlike New York City, St. Simons Island as a whole doesn't have much nightlife. By midnight, almost everything is closed. It's just a few of us hotel folk who are working. Us, and the cops, and the people at the 24-hour Waffle House.

I actually like this shift. A few years ago I discovered that the independence/autonomy of third shift appealed to me. I get to work at my own pace, mostly. There's no overbearing bosses, incompetent or annoying coworkers, or office politics to deal with.

When the excrement hits the fan on overnight shift, it has the potential of getting very ugly, but fortunately I've never been robbed or had anything more dramatic than a fire alarm yet (and that one was a false alarm).

Mostly it's peaceful and relatively low-stress. I'm all about low stress. The mellower the better.

Thanks for an interesting radio piece.

Had I gone through all that and been given crutches, I probably would have used one of them to smack the Tylenol Lady upside the head. (Maybe that's the real reason why they didn't give you any, huh?)

This was a pretty haunting piece. The music added greatly to the feeling of the story.

The previous comment was well reasoned and well stated, and I am sure it scores some valid points from a critical and technical standpoint, but I also found it a little bit harsh. I found the piece rather interesting, and didn't fall asleep, even though I was listening to it at 3:15 AM while working the overnight shift! Some of these radio pieces help keep me awake through the night.

Keep up the good work- I'm a Memory Palace fan, for sure!

I first heard you on the PRX channel of my XM radio, and these little pieces were some of the impetus that brought me online to the site. I work graveyard shift in a resort hotel as a night auditor, so these pieces keep my brain from turning to mush while I'm mindlessly typing numbers into boring spreadsheets. Yay for you, and thanks- keep 'em comin'!

Thanks for an interesting historical piece.

I can see why this one caused a stir. It punched me in the gut. The somber, contemplative piano music fit well, too.

Though my childhood was in the 1970s rather than the 1950s, I can recall friends of my parents who were sort of like Mike Butler: adults who were flawed but nonetheless beloved, and in their own way good role models of a sort.

I heard part of this piece on XM radio in the car, and it caused the proverbial "driveway moment", wherein one sits in the car longer than necessary to finish listening to a piece. It proved too long to complete in the driveway, however, so I later came here to find it and finish listening. As a former North Carolina resident, I can easily picture many of the places and people she mentions. I found this piece to be sad, eerie, and rather disturbing, but it definitely was gripping and candid, and for that I give it high marks.

As an aside, I too have grown fat since my NC days, though as a male I suppose it has a different social connotation. I have a very pretty young daughter who's been baton twirling since she was three years old, too. Maybe that's why this piece punched me in the gut.
Fortunately, the similarities end there. I consider this a cautionary tale.

I won't go through the trouble of writing a proper review, except to say how much I enjoyed this piece. Words like "evocative", "textured", and "fascinating" come to mind.

Oh yeah... spelling error in the title, too. This story involves a MILLstone, not a "milestone", as it says in the title!

But overall these little pieces are fun, as I mentioned.

Great- I just wish there had been more. The four-minute segments seemed so short! These sort of historical programs are my favorite.