The History Lesson

Today was the first day I did anything touristy in DC. My parents were in town and despite the fact that I once again am sick, I got my lazy butt out of bed and went to a museum. After looking at a list and debating which one to go to, we decided on the American History Museum. My mom really wanted to also go to an exhibit on Elvis at the National Portrait Gallery but my dad seemed unimpressed, and I think we all forgot just how tiring one museum of this size can be. The museums, and their free entry thanks to "our tax dollars at work", are really a reason that DC is unique and that living around or near DC is great when you have little children. I remember once in France I saw this group of French children in school uniforms sitting in front of a Monet getting lectured by the museum staff about art on the weekend. I thought to myself, this is why it is awesome to be European, look how much culture children get at such a young age....growing up in America SUCKS. But, seeing the kid-friendly environment of the Smithsonians proved to me that a cultured American childhood can exist. There were kids playing around in the exhibits with the many items that said "please touch" on them. Honestly, these features were good not just for kids but for the kid in all of us. I do not know about you, but I always wanted to go around touching things in a museum, and the Smithsonian made those dreams come true. There were also kids listening to a docent tell a story of the "nonviolent" movement in front of one of the counters from the sit-ins in the Civil Rights movement . He had the kids imagine how hard it would be to stay nonviolent despite being called names and having things, like milkshakes, thrown at you. After learning and reflecting a little myself, I felt slightly reassured that Americans were somewhat educated and cultured, at least in DC and the surrounding areas.

However, growing up in North Florida, if my parents did not take me to museums in New York City and abroad, the only history I would have learned until practically middle school would have been Florida history. No, I did not go to one of those schools that took a road trip to DC. Instead, I think I visited Castillo de San Marcos and St. Augustine (the nations OLDEST city) and learned about the conquistadors and Ponce de Leon every year (Can you say OVERKILL?). The highlight of this Florida-centric education was, of course, Florida Day in 4th grade. For this event, we dressed up like a part of Florida's history and recited a script we wrote about who we were. Being the cool kid that I was, a current blog follower and I decided to be Southern Belles, served fried chicken, and wrote some humorous and crazy story about how our husbands were getting blown up and losing limbs in the war. This was all said in our attempt at elitist southern accents, which for a person with a Yankee father was pretty horrible sounding. All in all this event was pretty fun and ranks much higher in my memories than having to draw a map of the world with the correct longitude and latitude from memory, or memorizing the entire 5 pages of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere poem. I consider these other two assignments rather useless. In fact, the only time I ever reused this knowledge was to prove to a tour guide in Boston that I knew more of the poem than he did, and even he was more annoyed than impressed. "Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere"... what wasted brain space.

Today's trip to the museum served as a reminder of how much information we cram into our heads early in life and forget. The only history class I took in college was the History of the American South and despite taking AP US history in high school, it was clear from my day at the museum that my science and anthropology knowledge had kicked out a lot of history from my memory. One interesting area of the museum that we visited was called the "American Presidency". In this section there were items owned, used, or worn by each President. One of our favorite items was an ashtray given out by the Kennedys that was a "notice of change of address" to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This was pretty creative, and even funny, if you ask me. There was also a whole part dedicated to Lincoln, which had his hat that he wore to Ford's Theatre and these weird moldings of his face:



I guess these moldings made it cool to see exactly what he looked like, but truthfully, I sort of felt like I was looking at an open casket and it freaked me out. While walking around, it was difficult for me to place the Presidents and their items in time. All I could think was that I remembered learning the order of the Presidents using this song from Animaniacs (George Washington was the first you see, he once chopped down a cherry tree, number two would have to be Johns Adams and at number three....) but if someone asked me to list them in order today, I could basically sing the song up until James Monroe and then hum the rest. What an unfortunate complete loss of knowledge.

We also visited the "World at War". Here I was reminded of all the wars that I forgot that we fought in. Oh Hello, War of 1812. The coolest thing in this section was the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner. This flag is MASSSSIVE and it is no wonder that Francis Scott Key could see the flag flying in the midst of all those bombs. Side note, I cannot use the word massive without thinking of the movie Bring It On and the quote "you put the ASS in MASSIVE...you put the WHORE in HORRIFYING". Classic.



The fact that this flag was preserved for so long, and so well, made me wonder what items I should be collecting from my life to go into the Smithsonian one day. For my parents, the museum items from the 60s/70s often made them say "wow, we had those, and now they are in a museum!" My mom was amazed that they had birth control pill packs from virtually every year since 1971. To be honest, the pills do not look THAT different and it was sort of weird to see that many pill packs next to each other. But, they were a big deal in history and a huge part of the women's liberation movement so I get it. My dad was excited by the mini chemistry sets that he remembered having to play with and learn from at home. Did I mention that I also get my nerdyness from him??? I was, of course, curious how they made sure that no mix of the chemicals would explode on the kids, but my dad was more angry that "kids these days" would rely on computers and never get to experience this type of hands on learning. Because of their reflections, I could not stop thinking about what from our lives will end up in a museum. I wondered if there would be a collection of cell phones, like the birth control pills, and as time went on, they would get smaller and more physically appealing. For evidence of this drastic and quick shrink in cell phone size, watch My Best Friends Wedding and look at the cell phone Julia Roberts uses. It is HUGE, and since I remember seeing this movie in theaters, it cannot be that old. Interestingly, the costume from the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies is already considered worthy of being in the museum..."Heroes in a Half Shell...Turtle Power". Perhaps the Power Rangers (fingers crossed it is the pink one) will be next....



The highlight of my visit, besides the First Ladies collection of inaugural dresses, was DEFINITELY Julia Child's kitchen.


I would be lying if I said the idea to blog didn't first get imprinted in my head from the movie Julie and Julia. Anyway, her kitchen looked more like a laboratory with dozens of tools and different mixers, pans, etc, than it did a kitchen. Being the stellar chef that I am (if making pasta and plain chicken was talent), I definitely had never even seen 3/4ths of the things she owned. I spent a good deal of the visit watching her explain each kitchen item on video and was just amazed at all the things she needed and how she chose them because of how long they lasted. Probably for some this visit would motivate them to become a better chef, but for me, it made me hope I could find something I love enough to want to and be able to do so happily until the age she did. I had never really noticed how old she was in a lot of her shows and was just in awe of her career longevity. She also had an amazing sense of humor that made her unique. For example, on one episode she used a duck call thing and then said, "TODAY we are having DUCK". As humor is something that I truly admire in a person, this joke only made her cooler in my book. As I told you before, I love to laugh.

All in all, my day at the museum made me slightly more proud to be an American than I have been recently. Yet, it also made me realize that there are so many things about US history that I forget. I think we all try to, or well we have to, learn so much in such a sort amount of time that what we ultimately retain is so random. For example, in 7th grade I learned about osmosis with this song: "Osmosis is the movement of the water from a greater concentration...to a lesser concentration..until an equilibrium is reached". Everyday we would have to get up on our chairs and sing it...with hand gestures. While I am not sure why our teacher chose to emphasize osmosis, to this day I remember the song and could never forget what osmosis means. History, on the other hand, was virtually in one ear and out the other even though I really liked learning about it in school.

It is pretty sad that despite my Ivy League education, a trip to the museum can serve as a history lesson....