by Monday I will be uprooted from my nice life. I know it’s going to be fascinating and fun researching the former Duke Parapsychology Lab, but still. I feel homesick already. Plus, I have all the attitudes that make New Yorkers so annoying to the rest of the country. Will there be decent food in Durham? I love to walk around the city for a while everyday — is any part of Duke a walk-around city? People who have been to Durham tell me it’s gorgeous and I’m going to love it.
I believe it. I felt ill about leaving New York for West Virginia this month, and then I fell in love with West Virginia. But still. But still, but still, but still.
Anyway, I’m getting ready. I’m making folders of all the scientists I’m going to write about. In it I plan to put photographs, articles, tapes, interviews of people who knew them. I’m bringing the dead back to life.
Starting with this guy, J. B. Rhine.
As long as I’m at it, in case there are people reading this who knew these people and can tell me about them, these others are emerging as major players in the story of the lab:
Louisa Rhine
Gaither Pratt
Charles Stuart
Burke Smith
J. A. Greenwood
J. L. Woodruff
Betty Humphrey Nicol
T. N. E. Greville
That’s not including the graduate students, the people who gave them money, the people who were the subjects of their research, who I also plan to write about, among others.
