Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

In February of 1993, Groundhog Day was playing in theaters nationwide, Eric Clapton won several Grammy awards for his song “Tears in Heaven,” and a book was being checked out at the Coffee County Manchester Public Library that wouldn’t make its way back for nearly 33 years.

“The lady brought it in,” explained Youth Services Librarian & Event Coordinator Daphanie Gragg. “She had lost it years ago, and they couldn’t find it, so they had to pay for it. She went ahead and brought it in because she didn’t want to keep it anymore.”

The book in question was a copy of “Nate the Great,” a children’s book first published in 1972 that tells the story of a young boy detective named Nate who solves mysteries with his dog Sludge using logic and observation.

“Nate the Great” was originally printed in hardback, like the returned book, before moving to a paperback cover in 1977.

Over its first year and a half at the library, “Nate the Great” was checked out 39 times between November 1991 and February 12, 1993, when the book was last checked out. It still had its original checkout card in the back cover.

The book had been taken out of the system and replaced before the return took place, so it didn’t go back on the library’s shelves. It did end up finding a good home, though.

“We already replaced it, so we were going to place it in the book sale room where I purchased it because my son’s name is Nathan and everybody calls him Nate,” said Gragg. “This is one of his favorite books actually, and that’s one of the originals, so I was like ‘I’ve gotta have it.’ We have a huge library room in our house.’”

There was a fee that was paid for the book before it was returned to the library but there’s no record of what it was, though as Gragg surmised:

“Probably back then, it wasn’t much.”

Gragg says that it’s a “fluke” that both Coffee County Manchester and Coffee County Lannom libraries had returns come in from the 90s recently.

Lannom had a copy of “Consumer Tactics Manual” returned at the end of December in Tullahoma after being checked out in 1995.

She explained that libraries will have books returned after long periods of time “once in a blue moon,” and that the return of “Nate the Great” was the longest time frame that she had ever seen between checkout and return.

“I just think it was neat that they found it,” Gragg said. “Occasionally somebody will bring one in that they found at their parents’ house when they were cleaning it out or something like that and bring it in, and that’s pretty neat to see.”