31 Awesome Things in 31 Days: Thing #2—Visit the Silent Wings Museum

Today we went to the Silent Wings Museum, where WWII glider pilots used to train. We've meant to make this visit since we moved here three years ago, but never got around to it. The nice thing about doing 31 Things in 31 Days is that it really pushes us to do the things we've always meant to do, but never have.

Depending on which due date you agree with, I am either at the very end of my second trimester or the very start of my third trimester. This is Hollie and me showing off our tummies.

The Silent Wings Museum was certainly silent. There were maybe three other guests there besides ourselves. It made the dimly lit reenactments of foxholes particularly haunting. At times, all I heard was Hollie shuffling nervously about (I'm not sure she fully understood that the dummies wearing WWII garb were not real people) and tinny recordings of rat-a-tat-tat playing from camouflaged speakers. It was eerie, patriotic, nostalgic (of someone else's nostalgia), and beautiful. (Though, I should mention that Dave did try to lighten the mood a little bit by singing a few bars of Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon"—"And we were sharp...as sharp as knivesknivesknivesknives!" That's the thing about Billy Joel: even when he's singing about stuff that's real and serious, you just can't take him all that seriously.)

We particularly liked the exhibits that tried to recreate scenes and moments. Looking at the contents of Hollis Davis's trunk made us feel like we were snooping, they were such a random and interesting assortment of 1940s things.

David had just finished John Knowles's A Separate Peace (my old copy—one of my all-time favorite reads from high school) about young men at the start of WWII, and I had just finished teaching John McPhee's A Binding Curve of Energy about Ted Hughes and his work with and eventual disgust for the atomic bomb. So we were both pulled into the artifacts around us with more particular interest than otherwise. The museum was pretty comprehensive; it showcased not only American weaponry and outfits but that of the Germans and the Japanese as well.

An old Underwood that looks almost exactly the same as the antique Underwood I inherited from my grandfather, which had been a prototype. We snagged a picture hoping to make a closer comparison later.

I love air force museums because of all the space, light, and windows that are customary in any exhibit intending to show off huge planes. Dave and Hollie are checking out The Grasshopper, one of the training gliders.

The entire front of the glider opens up to let out anything from troops to jeeps. Because the gliders glide rather than rely on engine power, they were quite noiseless and stealthy. Hence, you know, "silent wings."

The visiting exhibit was called "Stay Alert, Stay Alive," all about the American '50s and early '60s when the atomic bomb was the topic. The exhibit included an assortment of nuclear warfare in pop culture, in educational pamphlets, and in emergency preparedness tracts. There was even a little girl's box of paper dolls and cutouts of a family living in a fallout shelter. It was breathtaking to imagine purchasing something so foreboding for Holls to play with. I had to not think about it too much, since my hormones are so loose and free these days.

I wasn't fast enough to capture Hollie staring this atomic-bomb pin-up in the face, which she did for a full minute or so. I'm not sure why I tried to capture the picture in the first place; it was a little unsettling.

Atomic bomb toys for kids in the '50s.

Note the "Assisting the Birth of a Baby after an enemy attack if no doctor is available" pamphlet. This one was particularly striking to me. The soothing pink and blue pattern was particularly non-soothing.

Two things: (1) I can't tell if Atomic Bomb Rings would be cool to own or terrible to own today, and (2) Kix used to look weird. More like Sugar Puffs than Kix.

Hollie is giving us her sign for "water," not because she is thirsty, but because she fully expected the center of this brick courtyard to contain a decorative water fountain like those she is used to seeing in the brick courtyards at Texas Tech. She was pretty disappointed there were no water fountains at this museum.

We left the museum as silently as we entered it. It perhaps wasn't the typical giggly goofy dancey-pants Grover adventure we typically bounce after, but it was still certainly "awesome." Dave and I talked on our way out to the car about how strange a connection our generation has with WWII. It is the war of our grandparents, but it isn't our war. It is the war of our childhood films, of Indiana Jones, The Rocketeer. Two Christmasses ago I watched The Bridge over the River Kwai and Empire of the Sun in the same week while nursing Hollie. After the latter, I stared at Hollie sleeping next to me and wept. I had started the film during a middle-of-the-night feeding and didn't go to sleep until after it had ended, sometime around 3:00 a.m. It choked me. I walked funny the following two days. I tried not to let too much of this return as I walked around Silent Wings and thought of the soldiers, the bombs, the people at home, the aftermath. It's too big. And it isn't my history to remember, exactly. So it's hard to know where to shelve things.

What was really nice was just walking around a small museum with Davey and Hollie in tow. West Texas is not exactly the most culturally diverse and resplendent place to live, but that doesn't mean you can't find awe-inspiring exhibits when you look for them.

Thing #2, Appreciating the silence of the Silent Wings Museum: ACCOMPLISHED.

I promise tomorrow's Awesome Thing will be more rip-roaring and carefree. Also, as soon as David has less pressing final papers to complete, he'll start doing his share of blogging, too.