THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180460
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 58 lines
A reader, age 7, told me to go to the Children's Museum in Portsmouth. ``You'll like it,'' he said.
So what did he like about it?
``The big chair,'' he said. ``It's very big. It's the biggest chair you've ever been in. The very, very top of the chair is 10 feet tall.''
He must have thought he was in the Giant's chair in ``Jack and the Bean Stalk.''
``And the Birthday Mom brings you a piece of cake,'' he said.
He had to have been at the museum for somebody's birthday party.
``The rock climbing I really liked,'' he said. ``Once you get to the top of the wall, you climb sideways along it to the other end.''
A horizontal climbing wall!
``There's a Hula-Hoop on the floor and you pour a bubble mix in the rim and then you step inside the hoop and you pull a rope down and the hoop rises and it brings one big bubble around you.''
So you are standing inside a huge bubble like a Santa Claus image amid snow in a glass paperweight.
At his age, my generation dipped a tiny pipe in soap suds and evoked a bubble the size of a crab apple.
``They've got a planetarium,'' he said. ``There's a big ball in the middle and they turn off the lights so the sky is blue and the dots on the ball are stars that are white and when the ball is turning around it looks like the stars are moving.''
The way he'd doped it out may be wrong but it sounded grand.
Monday I drifted over to the museum, which was closed, said technicians working in the foyer.
``Came to check designs,'' I said, striving to pass as a design-checker. And found inside a play grocery store with fake money and all kinds of plastic groceries for sale and a tiny bank in which one may deposit money and kite checks.
And a full-size black and silver shining Portsmouth police motorcycle on which to climb and the huge cab of a red and silver gleaming firetruck in which one can sit and lord it over the world.
And ever so many other things.
With more to come. In December 1997 there'll be the debut of a million-dollar collection of antique toys and trains donated by Arthur Lancaster and his wife, Millie.
To raise funds for the city's four museums, there'll be on Saturday Sept. 28, from 7 to 10 p.m. a Courthouse Cotillion marking the 150th anniversary of the 1846 Courthouse, now a museum.
It will be optional black tie or period dress for the dance and the supper buffet. Tickets are $50 per person. Call 393-8983.
Next day, Sunday, there will be trolley tours from 1 to 6 p.m. of the city's Greek Revival architecture for $12 per person and a free concert in the museum's courtyard.
Within the Courthouse will be a Greek Revival show from the Smithsonian Institution, which is observing its own 150th birthday.
In Portsmouth they know how to have fun. by CNB