The final part of my Influence of Popular Culture series is easy. It’s really just a giggle.
Back to that first season of the Fargo TV series. There’s a scene in Episode 8 where two FBI Agents have screwed up their assignment — the mobsters they were supposed to be watching get murdered under their watch. Oops. So they get reassigned to what is for them the worst job imaginable.
They are sent to the filing room. For an indefinite period of time.
The scene shows them, with their boss, in the elevator, as it goes down and down and down. Then they walk through the long and increasingly dark corridor to where there are no longer any windows and the plumbing pipes are visible on the ceiling.
They are still trying to talk their boss out of this horrible reassignment. “It was just a mistake.” “We can do better.” The boss says nothing; they reach one of the nondescript doors along the corridor, and he opens it — THE FILE ROOM!
File boxes, piled one on top of the other, all neatly labeled, are the only things to be seen. The two agents enter the room; the boss closes the door. As one of the agents tries to figure out how to get out of this situation, and the other one is resigning himself to it, the camera pans around them, up and down the rows and rows and rows of boxes on their metal shelves, seemingly never-ending. This is their worst nightmare!
Here’s what’s funny, I think.
If you had glanced at my husband, Bob, during this scene, you’d see his grimace, a look somewhat akin to horror; you’d note how he was pushing himself back into his chair, away from the TV. A reaction fully in line with the intent of the scene.
If you’d glanced at me, a family and local historian, you’d see my look of pure delight — eyes wide, mouth open; I am leaning forward in my chair; I am almost pointing at the TV — YES! YES! YES!
All I could think of was all of the information in that room. All of the details and stories written down on paper, in obscure forms and notes and, oh gosh, photos! With full access to all of it! All one had to do was look.
Oh, and, also, the challenges and joys of trying to get all of this organized! I was already considering the indexes, the abc order, all that lost information of people’s lives found again!
Yes — put me in this room for a year, I’m thinking! It can’t get better than this!
So what’s this all about? Nothin’ really. Just the view from the mind of a historian and erstwhile genealogist, who will never be able to comb through all of the files and records out there, but who is certainly going to try.
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