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WHY MUSEUMS? “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” – Winston Churchill My buddy, Tim, and I stood shivering and miserable on the frozen turf that our small town affectionately called a “football field” and bemoaned our current condition. It was a cold, blustery, early midwestern spring morning and even though the sun was out, it didn’t seem to be working quite right. The wind cut like a frozen knife right through our hoodies and sweatpants, our usual attire for the two-hour gym class we started out each school day with. It was our own fault though – we had signed up for this special class, although knowing that didn’t help when it was bitter cold with not even a snowbank to give us ammo for something fun. Tim groaned as he turned to me, teeth chattering almost uncontrollably as he whispered, “This weather sucks. I’ve gotta have a break. Wanna skip school tomorrow and go check out downtown Cincinnati?” “Won’t it be cold there too?” I ventured. “Yeah, but it won’t be school,” Tim said with a grin. “I’m in,” I replied. “First thing!” The next day we spent doing something our parents and our teachers would have never guessed had they overheard our hushed gym-class conversation. Growing up in a small town 50 miles from one of the biggest cities in the country, neither of us had ever had the chance to explore the vast and interesting concrete playground to be found in that fair city. So, what did we do all that day? Museums! In case you didn’t know, Cincinnati is loaded with them. Art museums, history museums, nature museums, automobile museums, heck, we even visited a small museum dedicated to the work of skilled illusionists, or magicians. The proprietor at the magic museum wouldn’t give up many secrets though, even though we pestered him to try to find out how to make our teachers disappear. We finally settled for learning how to pull a dove or a rabbit out of a hat. Two sixteen-year-old juvenile delinquents, hell-bent on tearing up the big city, spent their day oohing and ahhing over art and history. Who would have thunk it? Why museums? Well as my buddy Tim said, “This is where you find out about life.” Life already lived that is. And whether you accept it or not, my 10 • SURRY LIVING August 2022 Issue
by Larry VanHoose buddy was wise beyond his years. There is so much to learn in a museum. Why does a painter paint what he paints? What is his or her driving force? A sculptor, a muse, even a musician? Why did the Native Americans live here instead of over there? What were they like? What were their hopes, fears, challenges? What animals used to walk right where I am walking now? There is so much to learn and discover in a museum. A couple of years ago, my wife and I had the opportunity to tour Pearl Harbor National Memorial museums & grounds. This tragic and historic place has a somber, almost reverent feel to it, something I’ve maybe only felt once before, at Arlington National Cemetery. Still, to walk alongside other tourists in our Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and flipflops, and learn about one of the most incredibly devastating days of our country’s military history, was a lesson that threatened to break our otherwise calloused hearts. When I say “calloused,” I’m not insinuating that my wife and I are hard-hearted. I just think that with time, distance, and the romanticized Hollywood portrayal of that “date which will live in infamy,” that we’ve lost the lesson that the pain of that day could have taught us. And yet, as my wife and I wandered around the hallowed grounds of that fateful place, we walked in tandem with many Japanese civilians as well as Americans who also came to learn from our shared, albeit sometimes painful past. In one of the buildings, we actually sat quietly together with people from Japan and watched actual video footage of the horrendous destruction. It was a surreal yet enlightening experience to be sure. I’ll conclude with this thought. Not just at the Pearl Harbor museums, but in museums all across our great country and the world, we have the chance to discover and learn from both the good and the bad from our past, from the stories of the men and women who walked, struggled, lived and died, before us. I suggest that we should revisit those hallowed grounds as often as possible and reach for understanding. For as Mr. Churchill so succinctly warned, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Job 8:8-10 (NLT) “Just ask the previous generation. Pay attention to the experience of our ancestors. For we were born but yesterday and know nothing. Our days on earth are as fleeting as a shadow. But those who came before us will teach you. They will teach you the wisdom of old.”
