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Treasures Untold
I'm sure it's not polite to mention it, but today is my birthday. Guess how old I am.
I've written before about L. Frank Baum's recurring usage of that number. Unfortunately, it's also the number of our president-elect, because for some reason the precedent was set by Grover Cleveland for non-consecutive terms to count as separate presidents, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Beth's birthday was on Friday, and we spent a lot of it driving.
On the Saturday before last, Beth wanted to go to a place she'd just found out about on the Internet, the American Treasure Tour in Oaks, Pennsylvania. We drove there with her mom and uncle. It's located inside a warehouse building, and is the collection of one particular person who prefers to remain anonymous. It fills two rooms, one for musical instruments and one for toys, although there's a lot of overlap and a fair amount of stuff that doesn't fit either category. Much of the music room is dedicated to self-playing instruments, like player pianos and band organs.
One organ played "Dancing Queen," and I would have thought their era would have been largely over by the seventies, but I think I've occasionally heard even newer stuff on carousel organs.
It also has a lot of dolls and dollhouses, and some miniature sets of scenes from movies, including a few Oz-related ones.
The toy room also has a Tin Woodman and Munchkin Mayor.
One part of the music room had a lot of phones.
There's a lot of old advertising stuff, and items and displays from stores, restaurants, and circuses.
A giant jack-in-the-box from Kay-Bee Toys contains a soldier who calls himself Mr. Kay-Bee, and sings songs. Kay-Bee was still around in my younger days, and they still used toy soldiers as mascots, but I didn't know any of them had names.
One part has a bunch of Coca-Cola polar bears, and another some RCA Victor dogs.
And there are some interesting pairings with stuffed animals in the seats of cars and motorcycles, some toys and others ones made to drive on actual roads.
Could you really trust Foghorn Leghorn to drive a tractor, or Dopey from the Seven Dwarfs to fly a plane?
Did Yoshi run away, so Mario had to ride a horse instead?
And what do Kermit and Petunia think of Miss Piggy and Porky Pig taking a drive together?
This car with the Burger King and Ronald McDonald (or at least their heads) hanging out together does look official, though.
An early Chuck E. Cheese animatronic gave the mouse a gruff New York accent, which I don't think he had in the more recent commercials I recall seeing.
And R2-D2 was hanging out with some cotton candy and popcorn robots.
There's a tram tour around much of the toy room, and the driver has to turn very sharply in narrow passages, so I'm glad I'm not in charge of that. This lumberjack and giraffe were in a different part of the warehouse complex.
Last Tuesday, Beth and I saw Ben Folds at a venue near where I work, which was convenient for me.
His opener was Lindsey Kraft, who also played piano and had a pretty similar style.
Her performance was pretty loose, with her telling the story of her relationships and other life events, sliding casually into the songs.
Ben played one set, and then had another that was all requests delivered by paper airplane. I know not all of them made it to the stage, as I saw a few lying on the floor, which is a shame. I threw one of them that landed near me, but not hard enough to get it to the front, and I don't know whether anyone else passed it along. Ben commented on how a lot of the requests were for mellow songs, and there were also several for stuff he did for movie soundtracks that he couldn't remember anymore, including the cover of the Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket" for Over the Hedge. At one point, he attempted a Bruce Springsteen cover that turned into "Sweet Caroline" when he thought his voice was sounding more like Neil Diamond. They do both have similar vocal tones. This show was seated, but it was all folding chairs. We have tickets to see Franz Ferdinand at the same place later on, and it's standing room only.
This past weekend, we went to Pennsylvania to see my family. Before we got to my dad's house, we ate at Fuddrucker's for the first time in a while. There used to be one near Beth's mom's house, but it closed down years ago. On Saturday, we went with my dad and his wife to Columbia, and visited a museum that used to be a church.
They had a large train set, and a guy working there told some ghost stories.
Another place nearby was showcasing some sculptors from Baltimore.
And we drove to a nearby overlook above the Susquehanna River.
That evening, we had dinner with my brother and his wife and son. It's my nephew's seventh birthday tomorrow, and I don't see him very often. He's still very energetic, and I don't think he gets that from our side of the family. I still need to get him a present. The next day, we got frozen yogurt with my sister, and I briefly saw my mom, who's not doing very well right now. My brother gave me a Baby Fozzie Bear from McDonald's in the eighties, and my sister a pack of Wizard of Oz trading cards and the Switch version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. I have the GameCube version of that, but our GameCube is still at Beth's mom's house. And this morning, Beth gave me Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, also for Switch. Not all of my presents for Beth have even arrived yet, and her birthday is over already.
I've written before about L. Frank Baum's recurring usage of that number. Unfortunately, it's also the number of our president-elect, because for some reason the precedent was set by Grover Cleveland for non-consecutive terms to count as separate presidents, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Beth's birthday was on Friday, and we spent a lot of it driving.
On the Saturday before last, Beth wanted to go to a place she'd just found out about on the Internet, the American Treasure Tour in Oaks, Pennsylvania. We drove there with her mom and uncle. It's located inside a warehouse building, and is the collection of one particular person who prefers to remain anonymous. It fills two rooms, one for musical instruments and one for toys, although there's a lot of overlap and a fair amount of stuff that doesn't fit either category. Much of the music room is dedicated to self-playing instruments, like player pianos and band organs.
One organ played "Dancing Queen," and I would have thought their era would have been largely over by the seventies, but I think I've occasionally heard even newer stuff on carousel organs.
It also has a lot of dolls and dollhouses, and some miniature sets of scenes from movies, including a few Oz-related ones.
The toy room also has a Tin Woodman and Munchkin Mayor.
One part of the music room had a lot of phones.
There's a lot of old advertising stuff, and items and displays from stores, restaurants, and circuses.
A giant jack-in-the-box from Kay-Bee Toys contains a soldier who calls himself Mr. Kay-Bee, and sings songs. Kay-Bee was still around in my younger days, and they still used toy soldiers as mascots, but I didn't know any of them had names.
One part has a bunch of Coca-Cola polar bears, and another some RCA Victor dogs.
And there are some interesting pairings with stuffed animals in the seats of cars and motorcycles, some toys and others ones made to drive on actual roads.
Could you really trust Foghorn Leghorn to drive a tractor, or Dopey from the Seven Dwarfs to fly a plane?
Did Yoshi run away, so Mario had to ride a horse instead?
And what do Kermit and Petunia think of Miss Piggy and Porky Pig taking a drive together?
This car with the Burger King and Ronald McDonald (or at least their heads) hanging out together does look official, though.
An early Chuck E. Cheese animatronic gave the mouse a gruff New York accent, which I don't think he had in the more recent commercials I recall seeing.
And R2-D2 was hanging out with some cotton candy and popcorn robots.
There's a tram tour around much of the toy room, and the driver has to turn very sharply in narrow passages, so I'm glad I'm not in charge of that. This lumberjack and giraffe were in a different part of the warehouse complex.
Last Tuesday, Beth and I saw Ben Folds at a venue near where I work, which was convenient for me.
His opener was Lindsey Kraft, who also played piano and had a pretty similar style.
Her performance was pretty loose, with her telling the story of her relationships and other life events, sliding casually into the songs.
Ben played one set, and then had another that was all requests delivered by paper airplane. I know not all of them made it to the stage, as I saw a few lying on the floor, which is a shame. I threw one of them that landed near me, but not hard enough to get it to the front, and I don't know whether anyone else passed it along. Ben commented on how a lot of the requests were for mellow songs, and there were also several for stuff he did for movie soundtracks that he couldn't remember anymore, including the cover of the Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket" for Over the Hedge. At one point, he attempted a Bruce Springsteen cover that turned into "Sweet Caroline" when he thought his voice was sounding more like Neil Diamond. They do both have similar vocal tones. This show was seated, but it was all folding chairs. We have tickets to see Franz Ferdinand at the same place later on, and it's standing room only.
This past weekend, we went to Pennsylvania to see my family. Before we got to my dad's house, we ate at Fuddrucker's for the first time in a while. There used to be one near Beth's mom's house, but it closed down years ago. On Saturday, we went with my dad and his wife to Columbia, and visited a museum that used to be a church.
They had a large train set, and a guy working there told some ghost stories.
Another place nearby was showcasing some sculptors from Baltimore.
And we drove to a nearby overlook above the Susquehanna River.
That evening, we had dinner with my brother and his wife and son. It's my nephew's seventh birthday tomorrow, and I don't see him very often. He's still very energetic, and I don't think he gets that from our side of the family. I still need to get him a present. The next day, we got frozen yogurt with my sister, and I briefly saw my mom, who's not doing very well right now. My brother gave me a Baby Fozzie Bear from McDonald's in the eighties, and my sister a pack of Wizard of Oz trading cards and the Switch version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. I have the GameCube version of that, but our GameCube is still at Beth's mom's house. And this morning, Beth gave me Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, also for Switch. Not all of my presents for Beth have even arrived yet, and her birthday is over already.