2/10/2019

Weekly Update 2/10/2019

I spent a lot of time at DH this week. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, busloads of 7^th graders came to tour the house, do colonial crafts in the pharmacy and eat lunch in the gardens. I helped by giving 2 tours on Tuesday. I applaud the enthusiasm these kids show, but it’s difficult for me to do a guided tour that’s NOT like the tours I do all the time. The kids were not interested in listening to me lecture them. They had questions they wanted answered, and they just blurt their questions out; my normal rote talk goes right down the drain. Luckily, I was able to answer the questions, and I hope that I gave them a tour they enjoyed. I went back on Thursday to join a group of DH staff who were discussing how the museum will change when the buildings are renovated (the pharmacy will become the offices, admissions and gift shop areas, and the basement level of the house will revert to the kitchen, laundry and storage areas that were there in the 1820s). I’m not just sure why I was invited to this round table discussion, and I really had little to offer, but it was interesting. Friday, of course, I was there for my “normal” tours, and to fill the time before I go to The 90.

There was some excitement for a couple of days, too. Because it seems that more and more, problem solving and coping with disappointment seems to involve guns, there was a shooting incident in the development between the Publix and the YMCA on Tuesday morning. The schools are all right there, as well, so they were all put in lock down. The gunman injured, but did not kill, two people. He ran, and it was not known where he was hiding until he turned himself in to the police that night. On Friday, just as I was arriving at DH, a horse and carriage overturned on the next square north of Columbia Square. I could see all the blue police car lights as I parked at DH. Apparently the horse had been spooked, and a concerned citizen tried to stop the horse from running away by driving his car at the horse – not so smart. That caused even more panic, and the carriage went up on the curb at a speed that caused it to overturn. There were seven people in the carriage, five of whom went to the hospital for minor injuries. There will now be an uproar in Savannah about cruelty to animals and a call for the abolition of horse carriages.

Saturday was the annual Colonial Muster at Wormsloe Plantation. Unlike every other year that I’ve been here, it did not rain. Jane and I went to see the demonstrations, and especially liked the Colonial life area. This year, they added laundry and wool dying to the chores that the interpreters were showcasing, in addition to the cooking, baking, smithing, tanning, woodworking and other essential duties of the colonists. And, of course, demonstrations of the militia training, musket and canon firings. James Oglethorpe and Tomochichi were also there.

It was Super Museum Sunday this week, when museums across the state open their doors and don’t charge admission. Sounds like a good deal, but most do not give the normal tours (some give no tours at all, but allow people in with docents to answer questions, but not entire tours) and most do not open all of the areas on SMS (DH, for example, only allows people on the living level, not on the bedroom level). And all the museums are crowded. It’s a great opportunity to go to a museum that you might want to see, but just like Restaurant Week, you’re not getting the whole experience. The cemetery was very crowded. We needed to add an extra tour, and the first tour at 2 pm had about 60 people, Normally, we don’t want more than 30 on a tour.