One day last week, I woke 16-year-old-boy at the crack of noon.
"You wanna go to The Henry Ford?"
"What? Yeah. Can Best Bud come?"
The rather pretentious sounding "The Henry Ford" is the relatively new name for the combined attractions that used to be called Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. Granted, the new name makes an easier web address. 16-year-old-Boy's favorite part is the museum, and since it was 90 outside and very humid, I was not inclined to argue. We have an annual membership, so the choice was ours.
Best Bud and 16-year-old-Boy have been best pals since pre-school. They are both interested in engineering, and the only time 16-year-old-Boy gets serious about school is when Best Bud is in his classes. Like all of last year. And when I say 'serious,' I mean it in a 'doesn't-blow-it-off-entirely' way.
So we picked up Best Bud and headed off on the ten mile drive. It is rated I.G. (Incredibly Great) to have this place so close to us. People visit there from all over the world, and we have the freedom to visit at all the off-peak times, and just hit the stuff we really want to see, because, hey, we can always come back next week.
When we parked, we walked past a little underground bunker-thingy that had a hard-hatted guy in it talking on a cell phone. Huh. I never noticed that before. When we explored the museum, we found that there was an electrical issue that was being taken care of, so a couple of my favorite parts were very dark. They needed to shut down some of the power while they worked on it, hence the guy in the bunker.
It was kind of cool for us, probably sucky for the visitors from Sao Paola and Okinawa. There were lots of docents around (my retirement dream-job) apologizing and explaining, but it didn't stop us having fun and me getting some cool pix, described below, right-to-left, top-to-bottom.
The big, blue plane is the first thing that greets you as you enter. That's 16-year-old-Boy and Best Bud standing under it. Both boys are in excess of six feet tall. Next to that is the bus from Montgomery Alabama that Rosa Parks was riding when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. I am always pleased to see the reverence with which people approach this artifact. I've seen people burst into tears inside this bus.
The red chair in the next row? That's the chair President Lincoln was sitting in at Ford's Theater when he was assassinated. Yep. Next to that shot is one of the many actual planes suspended from the rafters. The Spirit of St. Louis (Lindbergh's plane) was in one of the dark-ish areas, or I'd have that here, too.
One of the museum sections is called Home Arts, and shows typical American kitchens through history. This one is a 1930's replica. The next shot that looks like a funky mobile home, is a funky mobile home called the Dymaxion House. It was designed by Buckminster Fuller and never really caught on. This is one of the sections that was dark-ish, but the reflections on the aluminum exterior were too cool to pass up.
The last row above features presidential vehicles. Theodore Roosevelt's Brougham is on the left, because he preferred horse-drawn to those new-fangled automobiles. And on the right is the car Kennedy was riding in that day in Dallas. The roof and bullet-proof glass were later added so LBJ could use the same vehicle. I think I'd have wanted a new one, myself.
Now let me share my love for the Mid-Century Modern look:
Lamy's Diner is inside the museum surrounded by cars of the 40's and 50's. Below that is a shot of some of my favorite furniture in the museum. The marshmallow couch doesn't look so comfy, but that and the daybed behind it were manufactured by the Herman Miller Furniture Co. right here in Michigan.
Some of the coolest Mid-Century stuff is in an exhibit called Your Place in Time, which was, alas, too dark for pix. Next time.
And now, because I am really a 12-year-old-boy in a Middle-Aged-Woman's body:
Top: The Weinermobile
Middle: That's a lotta willys
Bottom: Heh, heh.
