Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2002 > Museum Days 2002 Edition

Museum Days 2002 Edition

friday

I went to work very early so I could rebuild the main database for Brecht Kist with help from its tech support. It didn't work out, though: the techie did not show up at his end (in California) when I showed up at mine. I send the database anyway; he rebuild the database (with some difficulty). But it came to naught in the end: the department using BK already filed several applications into BK and it would be too expensive to redo them.

The LAN app specialist brought to work gooey cinnamon rolls and big chocolate doughnuts for the department. She was so generous that morning, and I suspect it was as an apology for her boyfriend leaving a drunken message on the department voice mail. One of each of those, added to the customary bag of popcorn on Friday, would have spoiled my lunch…if I had lunch. That could wait until I got home early after a skewed eight hours.

My overriding fear was that the tourists would steal the space in front of the garage before I can park inside. Fortunately the fear was unfounded.

My sister Tina came at six with my niece Erin and Amanda, a friend of Erin's from Bloomington. It was evident, that there was no room for the poor girl here, so she and Erin slept at the folks' house.

saturday

After dressing I walked down to the local Methodist Church, where they had a pancake/sausage breakfast for locals and tourists alike. This is the only time I ever set foot in that church, which I used to attend with my family when I was in high school.

On the way there I viewed one of the locals put on a display called "Uncle Ray's Good-For-Nothing Machine": a hugh contraption of wheels, gears, belts, chains, cams, screws and shafts; powered by a motor turning a wagon wheel turning a tricycle wheel; and doing nothing except propel billiard balls up and down and all through the mechanism, clanking all the way. It was the archetypal Rube Goldberg device. The old fellow who made it displays it every year this Saturday.

Then I walked down Main Street for a couple of blocks. The booths of outside vendors line the street through the whole downtown. They sell various foods, printed T-shirts, candles, crafts, and other assorted junk. One booth even had blades: swords of various eras and nations (including katana and ninjatô), even Klingon bat'leths.

After lunch I returned to Main Street to perform another Museum-Days tradition: to buy an "elephant's ear" (a large deep-fried crepe sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon) and then eat it at the folks' house.

Gathered at the folks' to watch the parade were myself, Tina, Erin, Amanda, Erin's auburn-haired cousin Corrine, Megan (my other niece), some guy with Megan who likes cats (obviously a Good Thing), and Vickie (who came only to eat lunch but left before the parade).

As for the parade itself, here is how it went as it passed the house:

After this I went back inside, quickly decided not to have something to eat, then headed back to the house. I would learn later that the parade had not ended; there were still left more floats and the Democratic candidates. That's typical, given the people who manage the parade are barely competent, but Fairmount can do the best it can with what it has.

I looked over the tourists along the parade route and later at the James Dean Run. Out of charity I will not describe them, but I will say the only pretty looker was short-haired with a white tanktop covering an impressive rack. I will also mention the two photographers: one a woman with long long braids, one a guy who looked like Tiny Tim, both dressed in funereal black.

Anyway, I took the long way back to the new house, walking through the park where the James Dean Run was held. The James Dean Run is an antique hot-rod show, and as you'd expect, the park was lined with cars of every possible kind, built before c. 1965, many heavily modified and some of them for sale. Also throughout were more vendors' booths of the same kind as along Main Street.

Tina, Erin & Co., Megan and cat dude have been in and out of the house through the day. Outside the tourists mill about and around from the downtown to the Museum to the park. Things quieted down by midnight.

sunday

I woke up, got dressed, helped Tina bring down a futon couch and puttered around the house until eleven. Then I walked over to the folks', as I usually do, for Sunday dinner.

Vickie was being her usual Vickie self, and after dinner told Tales Of The Brass Kitten that made me laugh so hard it cleared most of the cruft from work out of my lungs. She found the kitten thin and sickly in her garage about a month ago. Now healthier and better fed than when found, the kitten is expending a lot of energy and driving Vickie and the three other cats nuts. I suggested the name Tak-kun after the similarly high-energy kitten in the animé FCLC.

I walked back to the new house. At Sycamore Street was a long parade of roaring power motorcycles ridden by people wearing various forms of black leather. That lasted for about fifteen minutes, after which I could cross the street and made my way home.

Shortly afterward Tina & Co. left for Bloomington. I decided to pass the afternoon with The Lord of the Rings DVD. When it ended with the start of the evening. I went outside and put away the parking barrier for next year and refixed the back screen door.

It is quiet now. The lot in front of my house is empty. The tourists and vendors are gone, and only the tents and portable bogs in the park witness to the now-finished festival. The cats are already enjoying the futon couch, although it will need repairs before I can use it more often.

aftermath

It is a quiet day, a lot warmer than I like. The Museum still gets visitors, probably those who waited for the crowds to go away. The downtown smells fetid, and needs a good rain to clean out the stink.


Copyright © 2003 by Andy West. All rights reserved. Last updated 30 November 2003.