New from the Smithsonian Institution: The National Museum of You’re Getting Really Old

This Labor Day my WH (whereas in my last job this would have referred to the White House, in my current not-working-for-a-paycheck state refers to my Wonderful Husband), OBB (our brilliant baby) and I went into DC for a look around. It had been a while since either of us had to make the trek downtown, which used to be a daily occurrence.

We decided to visit two of the museums on the mall – the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History. Now for those of you who may not know, I grew up in the DC area and as a result, visited these museums many, many times – often against my will. Whenever people would come to stay at our house, it was “let’s go to the museums!” And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when you grow up in the DC area, EVERY SINGLE field trip you take for school is to one of the Smithsonian Museums – why? Because they’re free. And because your teacher can plop you down in the grass on the National Mall afterwards and make you eat your bag lunch outside. By the time I was 11, I could give tours of the Native American exhibit myself (which has now been removed from the National Musuem of American History to give it its own museum).

I haven’t been to either museum in over a year and the National Museum of Natural History had just undergone a renovation, so that was almost like touring a new museum. The National Museum of American History was closing for renovation (Labor Day was the last day it will be open for 2 years) so my WH and I felt especially clever for unwittingly allowing spontaneity to result in our visiting the museum on its last day. But I digress…

As my WH and I were walking through the National Museum of American History, we grabbed a map. In the map, an exhibit was listed entitled “When you’re TV was a piece of furniture”. This struck us funny because our TV IS a piece of furniture. It’s from 1982 and it is enclosed in wood, making it perfect to put the VCR on top of, and a clock, stacks of magazines, and a candle and whatever else you can fit on it. The reason it is still around? Honestly, because it still works and I just don’t feel right “pulling the plug” so to speak until it’s given us all it has to give…even though every time we move to a new house, my WH says “this is the last time we’re moving that TV”. So we went upstairs in the museum feeling the sense of pride that only comes when you’ve discovered that you own an artifact of American History.

Next, we went to the Jim Henson/Muppett exhibit. This was a small exhibit (only four or five glass cases) that included several muppetts that we know (Kermit, the Swedish Chef) and others we are less familiar with (Jim Henson’s original muppetts). The crowd gathered around this exhibit was stunning. Nowhere in the entire museum were so many people packed into such a small space – not the exhibit on American Presidents or the exhibit on Americans at War – just at the muppetts. As we were rolling the stroller away, a family with two elementary school-aged children walked up. As they approached, the 9 year old girl asked her father “Daddy, what is a muppett?”. My WH and I looked at each other and immediately knew in that moment that we were old. The characters and furniture from our childhood are now on display at a museum. We used to go to museums to learn. Now we go to remember.