Museums and Interpretive Centers

There are so-o-o-o many reasons to go to your local museums!  They always surprise Granpa and I with beauty and information and facts we don't seem to find anywhere else - even after all the places we've been and all the reading we do.  They have things about the common man that don't show up in encyclopedias or on the internet...  There is art work and period pieces and stories about times past.  There is life!

These pieces are not done justice in Granpa's photos.  The one on the left has warpaint on his arms but also on his face.  The other one is holding a tomahawk of devastating shape.  I think I'd rather be shot than clubbed with that.  Look at his leggings.  The amount of detail these artists go to is impressive in itself.

 

                                                                                                      Quoting from the actual journals from the Lewis and Clark expedition, this says:  Wah-Menitu  "Among them was a Teton, named Wah-Menitu (The Spirit in the Water), who had such a voracious appetite that he devoured everything which the others had left; his face was painted red; he had a remarkably projecting upper lip, and an aquiline nose much bent.  In his hair, which hung in disorder about his head, with a plain coming over one of his eyes or nose, the feather of a bird of prey was placed horizontally; but observe that he had a right to wear three.  Mr. Bodmer, who desired to draw this man's portrait, gave him some vermilion, on which he spat, and rubbed his face with it, drawing parallel lines, in the red colour, with a wooden stick.  Wah-Menitu stayed on board for the night; sung, talked, laughed, and joked without ceasing; and seemed quite to enjoy himself."

 Outside, this is exactly what the Corps of Discovery would have seen during their winter here.  This path would have led from the Indian village to their winter fort.  How more real can it get??

Please.  If there is a museum in your area, please go to it - go to all of them.  Take your children, make it a habit for them.  Just in our area of Arp, Texas there is the Oil Museum in Kilgore with an entire 1930's downtown area as well as an explanation of oil drilling, the New London Museum - a memorial to those children who lost their lives when their new school exploded from an odorless natural gas leak - which resulted in an odor of rotten eggs being added to natural gas so we can be alerted to a leak.  It tells the story of how Trinity Mother Frances Hospital wasn't supposed to open for months yet, but they opened their doors without fanfare to take in children wounded in the blast.  There's the Discovery Science Centers dedicated to enlightening children through having fun touching and doing.  There's an old Civil War camp where Union soldiers were held, antebellum homes to tour, and the Azalea District with historical homes and brick streets. In about a month those azalea's will be in bloom - and the internationally famous Tyler Rose Garden, too.  There's a Historical Society you might want to become a member of.

Winter, summer, spring or fall these places are open for you to grow in your knowledge of people, places and things.  Please go.  Take friends and family.  These places help us to never forget.