Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 17, 1995                   TAG: 9508170033
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURA MYERS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

IS FAWN HALL'S UNDERWEAR A MUSEUM EXHIBIT?

``There's a mastodon in my back yard.''

That's what the woman said when she telephoned the Smithsonian Institution, wondering if scientists could excavate the ice-age creature.

Then there are the folks who called asking if the Great Wall of China was on exhibit, or the ``original Bible.'' You know, 10 Commandments. Tablets. Moses.

Some of the hundreds of calls the Smithsonian fields each day involve age-old questions - what's the name of the man who invented the wheel? Or space-age queries - where can they see flying saucers on display?

``They just assume that everything's here and that we can answer every question,'' said Cordelia Benedict, who has supervised the Smithsonian's telephone information services for nearly a decade. ``We treat every call respectfully. People don't like to be laughed at.''

Besides, even Encyclopaedia Britannica researchers have called (asking about the history of the razor blade), and questioners from ``Jeopardy!'' often burn up the lines seeking game show material.

Benedict and three dozen volunteers answer mostly mundane questions: How do you get to the Smithsonian's museums in Washington? When are they open? The most detailed questions often get shuttled to other departments.

``We don't want to make people look stupid, but some of these questions are off the wall,'' said Marilyn London, head of the anthropology outreach and public information office. ``But no question is a bad question.''

And London usually has an answer, or knows who does.

``I think we told the guy who wanted to know who invented the wheel that there was no way of telling,'' she said. ``But my response would have been: How do you know it was a man?''

Here are some samples of queries:

Can a small plane land on the Mall? The caller was sure it could, since ``all those planes in the Air and Space Museum had to get there somehow.''

Is Fawn Hall's underwear on display? This from ``two men in a Texas bar who obviously had a lot to drink,'' Benedict said. ``We get a lot of calls from people wanting us to settle bets.'' (No, Oliver North's secretary didn't donate her dainties, nor hide documents in them as some claimed.)

Where is the Ark of the Covenant? (Try Indiana Jones movies.)

Does the Smithsonian display Civil War planes? (The Wright brothers didn't pioneer aviation until 1903.)

Will the Smithsonian sell the starship Enterprise, used for the popular ``Star Trek'' television show? The caller ``only wanted it if the transporter was in working condition,'' Benedict said. (The only life-size Enterprise at the Smithsonian is the space shuttle of the same name).

Can the Smithsonian set up a caller with a hula teacher? ``Actually, I tracked one down for her,'' remembered London. ``We have a curator involved in South Pacific and Hawaiian culture, so she knew one.''

Can you send ``all the information you have on human evolution, even the secret stuff?'' from a grade-school letter writer.

Could the Smithsonian take a ``petrified whale'' off a caller's hands? He was referred to paleontology. ``I told him that means `very old biology,' and he said, `good, because this is a very old whale,''' Benedict recalled.

And one of Benedict's favorites: an offer to donate a collection of potato chips resembling ``famous people and animals.''

Benedict keeps the gems of the day - about three or four out of every 650 calls made to her department - in a battered green folder that ``just gets thicker and thicker.''

The Smithsonian might issue a book with 150 of the most interesting queries to mark the museum's 150th year anniversary in 1996, Benedict said., who hopes to title it, ``There's a Mastodon in My Back Yard.''

Hey, what about that woman's mastodon?

``There was literally a mastodon buried on her ranch,'' Benedict says. ``She was right. We referred her to the vertebrate department, I think.''

Smithsonian telephone information services can be reached at (202) 357-2700.