Strange Museums

A day trip visit to a museum can be an engaging, educational and worthwhile way to spend your time. While most of these institutions are designed to inspire public interest in a particular science, art or historical period, there are some that focus instead on the unusual and even bizarre aspects of human endeavors. Prepare to be amazed as Tidbits guides you on a tour through those of the latter ilk.

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BELIEVE IT OR NOT

• There are more than 30 Believe It Or Not “Odditoriums” around the world, displaying artifacts, photos, and stories collected by Robert Ripley as he traveled the world seeking the unusual. Among the thousands of items displayed at the various Ripley museums are these gems:

° A ¾ scale model of a 1907 Silver Ghost Rolls Royce with moving engine parts, turning wheels, and lights that work, made out of more than a million matchsticks and 63 pints of glue.

° A mosaic replica of the Mona Lisa made entirely of toast slices burnt to various shades.

° Lumps of coal recovered from the Titanic.

° Wax replicas of Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest human, measuring 8-feet 11-inches; and Walter Hudson, one of the world’s heaviest humans, reputed to weigh 1,400 pounds, though others contend his weight was merely 800-900 pounds (he refused to be weighed).

A tourist at a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditorium poses next to a wax replica of Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest human, at 8' 11" tall.

° The “Lord’s Prayer” written on a grain of rice without the aid of a microscope.

° The world’s smallest violin, which fits in the palm of a hand.

° A 21-foot working Ferris wheel made of Erector Set parts.

° A stuffed six-legged cow that died at the age of 14.

° A headless chicken - that lived!

°A life-sized statue of Marilyn Monroe made from $250,000 in shredded dollar bills.

TOOTH FAIRY MUSEUM

• Visit the Tooth Fairy Museum in Deerfield, Illinois to see a Tooth Fairy treasure trove, including Tooth Fairies made out of everything from paper mache to clay to fabric. There are Tooth Fairy angels, pixies, ballerinas, and even a Tooth Fairy bag lady. Of course, there are a lot of Tooth Fairy boxes designed for children to put their teeth into to receive their reward. One is shaped like a set of pink gums and is designed so that each tooth lost is placed in the appropriate slot, reproducing the child’s smile. Collecting money for lost teeth is an American custom that became popular around 1900. At that time, the going rate per tooth was about 5 cents. Today it's several dollars!

MUSEUM MISCELLANY

• In Dallas you can visit the Olde Fan Museum. There are more than 600 fans displayed here, all of them designed to circulate air, and all still operational. One pre-Civil war model is powered by a rocking chair. A 300-pound five-foot-wide Cyclone replica was used in movie making and needs to be anchored down when in use to prevent it from spinning out of control. In the 1920s, perfumed fans were popular, with canisters of scent being sprayed through the blades. One antique fan has a bullet hole in it, the origin of which is still a mystery.

• In Stevenson, Washington, visit the Don Brown Rosary Collection. With a collection of over 4,000 rosaries, the biggest collection of rosaries in the world. The rosary beads are made from everything, from glass beads to small bones, rubies, opals, olive pits, nuts, leather, and even bullets. The most valuable rosary on display is one carried by JFK during his Navy service in World War II. The museum had to turn down one rosary offered for donation made out of bowling balls and logging chain, which its proud designer had hoped to place on the Statue of Liberty. It was more than 100 feet long and simply to large and heavy for display.

• In New York City, visit the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, featuring authentic re-creations of immigrant slum dwellings. This typical tenement building has been restored to show the crude living conditions experienced by the roughly 7,000 tenants from 20 different nations who crowded themselves into the building between 1863 and 1935. Exhibits in the apartments tell the stories of former residents and explain the history of immigration in America during that period in history.

MUSEUM OF BAD ART

• In Boston, the Museum of Bad Art showcases the work of shamelessly untalented struggling artists, along with gifted artists who were simply having a bad day. The curator has extremely tough low standards, and only about ten percent of the pieces offered to the museum are deemed outrageous enough to earn a place in the permanent exhibit. According to the museums promotional literature, what they all have in common is “a special quality that sets them apart in one way or another from the merely incompetent. -- They grab you by the throat and don’t let go.”

• One work of bad art by artist Jeanne Kent is called “The Good Year” and is described as “an abstract appeal to the emotions through violent assault on the visual sense.” This saturated work speaks of sunshine, tossing together watermelon, baubles, body parts, and a blue banana in a fruit-smeared cocktail. “Nature’s Ashtrays” is a work entirely constructed out of shells by a chain smoker who was trying to quit.

“The Athlete” is probably the largest crayon on canvas work in the world. It depicts a discus thrower with bulging muscles wearing a pink tutu and a toga. Another work consists of an ostrich egg etched with repetitious patterns of bees, ants, and the Energizer Bunny, along with the repeating text “I Just Can’t Stop.” Other items on display include “Predator Pumpkins,” “Sunday on the Pot with George,” “Peter the Kitty,” “Two Trees in Love,” and numerous other nauseating visual assaults.

• Many other such works are acquired from trash can lids, flea markets, and thrift shops, but the Museum of Bad Art is always looking for new donations to add. They do not accept paint-by-numbers, things painted on velvet, big-eyed kids, or dogs playing cards. Submissions are guaranteed never to be returned to the donor.

MORE MARVELOUS MUSEUMS

• Smithsonian Magazine recommends the following if you’re interested in far-out museums:

° The Surfing Museum in Santa Cruz, California is located right next to some popular surf on the coast. See antique wooden surfboards that are older than the Beach Boys, the shredded wetsuit of a surfer who survived an attack by a shark, and a complete history of over 100 years of surfing.

° The Roller Skating Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, displays actual costumes worn by roller skating champions, the history of roller-disco dancing, the world’s largest collection of vintage roller skates, the story of roller derbies, the development of in-line skates, and more than 1,500 books about skating, as well as films and photographs.

• Various Elvis museums in and around Memphis contain such things as his checkbook stubs, his underwear, copies of his grocery lists, a used tube of Chapstick, a wad of chewed gum and X-rays of his sinuses. □