For our first "Go See It" the two Tiger Dens came together and went to the McMinn County Living Heritage Museum.
The boys were attentive, polite and even asked questions and made comments about some of the displays. The first display that we saw on the main floor of the museum featured some of the prominent members of the Black community through the history of McMinn County. One of the kids politely interrupted the guide to tell her "Yeah, but only, the color of your hair and eyes and skin, don't matter."
Next we moved on to the "old timey" Dr's office, complete with a full human skeleton and an extra skull courtesy of the First Athens Baptist Church. They literally had a skeleton in their closet.
The boys watched our guide carefully as she held the human skull and told them how fragile it was. She got this look from the boys when she accidentally dropped the top of the skull on the counter...she decided not to pass the skull around since she couldn't even hold it careful enough...LoL...but she did hold it out for each of the boys to get a good look and she even offered to let them touch it...
Zachary wasn't completely convinced that he wanted to touch the skull...
They also had an old dentist's office display, an old gas pump and a country store set-up. The guide talked about how people used to barter instead of just purchasing things from the store. She also talked about how most families only went to the store once a week and if the kids had done their chores they could trade the goods that they got to keep for a piece of hard candy.
Aiden really liked seeing the weaving loom, sock darning machines and the spinning wheel. He said they reminded him of his Grandma.
The boys really thought the old toys on display were awesome. They each picked out which one they would have wanted, while the parents discussed which ones we had had growing up.
There was a beautiful church display.
Some neat postcards sent throughout the years.
The museum got a lot of donations from the USS Charles R. Ware on display and we got to hear a little bit about it's history, too.
The kids enjoyed trying to make letters with flags...
...getting to see what the soldiers had on board to provide them some entertainment...
...The various uniforms, from the different wars throughout history...
....and the models of the tanks and planes and how they have changed over time!
The kids quickly identified the bathtub on display and commented on the fact that their parents still use wrought Iron pans to this day.
They each got to take a turn milking the cow before our time was up. I think it's name was "Molly Moo" and I'm not sure if it was motion activated or on a timer, but boy was she noisy when she wanted to be... LoL... she kinda spooked a couple of the boys until they got to see her.
There was way more to see than what we had time for in our 1-hour block that we had scheduled, but I think it was a nice visit. The boys seemed to enjoy the experience and they might have even learned a thing or two, at least I hope so.
I managed to get a couple of pictures at the very end of the tour of most of the kids that made it... I think one or two families snuck out before I realized that the other group was still in the museum, but getting this many to stand still and look in one direction was enough of a challenge...
One "Go See It" down, 4 more to go. Til next time!
