Saturday, December 16, 2006

The Museum of Tragedy in American History

Once some years ago we took a family vacation to Florida, my (then) wife and my son.

In Miami we got in my mother-in-law's car and drove to St. Augustine to visit my brother-in-law. He was working there in a restaurant washing dishes. He had the day off. In the afternoon he and I were given liberty to wander about. St. Augustine is full of tourists, or was that day. There were a number of bus and foot-tours people went on, sight-seeing. I suggested to Willie that we should get himself a Spanish helmet, some leotards , and a sword with a scabbard and he could show tourists around. People would love it, and probably pay handsomely to have their picture taken with a would-be Ponce De Leon. Naw, he was okay washing dishes.

While my wife and mother-in-law went shopping, my brother-in-law and I went into a nice dark air-conditioned tavern . There were four other customers in there, big guys gone to lard, probably homecoming kings back when Kennedy was president. One of them had snow-white hair and a beet-red face - he bore an uncanny resemblance to former house of representatives leader Tip O'Neal. These men watched ESPN and drank. After awhile an alarm went off on sombody's watch. "Well..." Mr. Tip-alike proclaimed. They got up, chairs squawking, ambled out into the bright heat of the day.

Did I forget to mention they were dressed in colonial outfits? Big George Washington style three-corner hats, military uniforms rowed with bright buttons, epaulets, knee socks. I doubt that anybody got as big as these fellows before fried cheese was invented though.

As they went out the door a bus pulled up. A bunch of tourists got out.

The colonial boys stuffed a wad into a cannon that was set up, fired it. There was a big puff of smoke. The report was loud. It set off a couple of car-alarms. Noone seemed too suprised. It was too hot to be suprised about much of anything.

The tourists took pictures. And then back into the bar went the artillery squad, to prepare for and confer upon their next assault.

The tour guide , who had a name-tag that said "Jodi" and looked like a "Jodi", said something about how the flags of three nations had flown over St. Augustine, and so forth. I asked about the cannon firing - and Jodi said that the soldiers fired it every hour from nine to six.

I thought I had a strange job. My brother-in-law and I followed the soldiers back into the tavern.

The bar had a stand-up rack of tourist-attraction brochures. One of the brochures displayed was for The Museum Of Tragedy In American History. I was on that brochure like ugly on an ape. Shaking like I was reading a love-letter. I stated quite clearly that I wanted to go there immediately.

My brother-in-law had heard of it. It was just about five blocks away.
"It's kind of a dump." he said. "I think the other tourist places are trying to run 'em outta business."

Minutes later I stood before it. It was all I could hope for. It was a two story house, really. And in the big front window stood an ex- Montgomery-Ward mannequinn holding what appeared to be a mock-up of an italian carbine. His face seemed to say "Say there - wouldn't you like to buy this smart 'n dandy suit?" Yet he was posed awaiting a motorcade that could never come by, wearing workman's clothing, standing before a bunch of boxes. On each box, someone had written with a fat black marker : "Send To: Texas Book Depository - Dallas".There was no way to connect that goofy-ass grin to a murderous, perching reprobate. Oh well.


Inside I went. There was a little bell on the door. Someone came down some stairs. Clump, clump, clump. It was a lady who appeared to have spent her life in a museum of tragedy.



Admission was ten bucks or so, for me and my brother-in-law. I was happy to pay. All around me were one thousand and one wonders! A rock touched by Helen Keller! Lee Harvey Oswald's can-opener! A real Egyptian mummy, priced to sell for $4,500! Just look at the pictures
My enthusiasm clearly wasn't catching. "The exhibits pretty much speak for themselves." the woman said, coughing, turning around, heading back up the steps.

So: I was left unattended in the Museum of Tragedy in American History.

I was amazed at the way the curators' museum life and personal life came together in such a super way - in the back, for example, right next to a 14 by 10 foot steel cage of ancient, rivetted steel - inside of which lay a human skeleton - there was a row of dinner-plate sized plastic daisies spinning lazilly in the breeze. And a garden hose meandered through it all- grass must be watered - even among Celebrity Death Cars. There was a picnic table, too, so you could eat your lunch, I suppose even have a birthday party in the midst of all that tragedy.




There was a life-size fiberglass cow by the picnic table, such as one might see on top of a supermarket. I am not sure why this cow was there. What could be less tragic than a cow? Isn't she the Grand-Dame of a thousand petting zoos? They give us cheese!



I suspect it *might* have had something to do with THE CHICAGO FIRE. Which was started, I am told, by a cow kicking over a lantern. This is the only link with tragedy - and I mean wholesale, catastrophic TRAGIC tragedy, not just getting chased by an angry cow - that I can fathom.

Maybe they just liked it, found it on a curb somewhere, and brought it home. I would.

My brother in law showed at least a little interest in the celebrity death cars, but overall I would guess he would have rather been anyplace else. Little did he know that a visit to a wax museum was in store for him later in the afternnoon.

Look! I found a helicopter egg back by the Celebrity Death Cars!


What could be more American than a collection of Celebrity Death Cars? They had the hearses that carried JFK AND Oswald after their respective shootings - but those were kept indoors. How they got them in the house, I haven't a clue. The hearses, while antique, were in like-new condition, and buffed to a high-gloss I-can-see-my-face-in-it-finish! But these were not Celebrity-Death-Cars in the strictest sense of the term. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page on that.


Now: Bonnie and Clyde's Death Car. There is a celebrity death-car for you. Uh-oh. Wait a second. Read the fine print and you find out that this was the/a car used in a movie about those two. Some Hollywood dingle-berries had riddled this car with holes - not a posse of kill-happy Texas Rangers.

There was a helpfull lil kiosk built into the booth/hut the car was displayed in - it offered gruesome black and white nude coroner's photographs of the ill-fated twosome. Who, by the way, didn't look much like Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, dead or alive.

The Jayne Mansfield Death Car, while not riddled with bullets, had endured worse. It looked like it had suffered in the hands of a gargantuan two-year-old having a temper tantrum.
It would have brought a tear to the eye of even the most seasoned of body-and-fender men.

I took pictures of the Celebrity Death Cars, and every photo was botched- by an impish trick of the light. Remember the aforementioned fiber-glass cow? Well, it's image was reflected off of the plexiglass booths which sheltered the cars. In every picture I took.



When I got the pictures back from the photo-developer, had a look at them,I felt as if the universe was at once tormenting, and then comforting itself, and I was the medium through which these sentiments flowed:

"Just look - Death Car!"
"No - cow."
"Death Car!"
"NO! Cow."
"Death Car!
"Cow."
"Death Car!"
"Cow."

4 comments:

Erica said...

I thought you might've made this whole thing up in your backyard amongst the zebrinas using the things you pick up on curbs, but I guess you didn't! Did you know they're now closed?

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/news/980405FLSTA.html

pohl said...

What a hoot. You have an excellent nose for adventure, and an unparalleled knack for rendering it as story. Fits of laughter here, and thank you.

Anonymous said...

I was there, and not there. Missed the whole musuem experience, but have ever since laughed and laughed about the "Ponce De Leon" idea. Picture willy, skinny little legs, balding, in tights and sword!

Anonymous said...

in april 1998 we heard about this museum on t.v. it was closing the owner passed away and were auctioning it all off i had been going back to st aug. for 15 years and never heard of it i found out the city would fight the owner by not telling people about it or tell them it was closed they thought it was bad for the city i had gone to it the next morning and purchesed an old flint lock hand pistol the oswald hearse noone bid on at 1500.00 the lincoln limo kennedy used when in washington was documented was in terrible shape was missing the engine and transmisson and was full of rot but well documented i thought for 4500.00 it was good buy it sold to a buyer by phone in connecticut the museum itself they wanted 100,000. for and noone wanted it and 5 years later went back saw the museum for sale for 800,000. but that same year 2003 a was watching the news at home in boston and had seen that same limo being auctioned off on ebay and had sold that day 40 years after the assassination cmpletely restored for 1,000,000. i still have all my photos from that day and will be moving there soon but after reading some other stories i thought i would put my stamp on history