Field Trip

 

                The caravan of brightly painted canary yellow cheese buses wound its way into the cobble stoned horseshoe driveway of the AMERICAN Museum of Natural History. The buses were practically bouncing up and down from the unrestrained excitement of all the children on this novel excursion outside the restrictive walls of the classroom. An unusual bouquet assailed the senses with a mixture of red roses from the museum’s gardens and carbon monoxide from the buses as they maneuvered for position before coming to their final stop. Although it was only 10 in the morning, the bus drivers appeared to have already put in a full day.

                Deep in the recesses of the first floor in the drab overlooked southeast corner of the museum near 79^th street and Central Park West sits The Hall of North American Forests at the base of the Astor Turret and the surrounding area. Untouched by renovations as far back in time as I can remember, it is clean but dreary, dark and old. The redeeming feature of the hall are the huge, magnified model reproductions of diverse types of bugs, visible in all their glory with six-foot millipedes, two-foot ants and even a four-foot mosquito in his own case set in the middle of the hall to attract attention.

                The children are a joy to the museum and the walls of the old complex are alive with excitement looking forward to stimulating these young minds with the many wonders and insights that the museum has to offer at this critical time in their lives while their minds are open to new ideas, perspectives and possibilities before the vicissitudes and difficulties of life start to wear them down over time as they age and their minds become fossilized and rigid, retreating from new and innovative ideas into a shell of comfortable old cliches for solace and self-fulfilling prophecy.

                Far off in the building can be heard the first excited utterances of the school children as they make their way into the interior of the complex. The invasion has begun. The first group of exploratory pioneers enters the hall of North American Forests including Rosa with her teacher Miss Portent. Rosa looks at the various display windows before being drawn to the old wooden case set off in the middle of the hall with a giant mosquito in it!

 He was very ugly with a segmented body and six long skinny legs all covered in hairs like the quills of a porcupine. He has wide hairy antennas like a moth, a set of palms for detecting the proper chemicals of an acceptable host and a long proboscis jutting out above his sharp mandibles which are used for breaking through skin before sucking blood or nectar. The sign explains the the model is seventy -five times his true size! Rosa is utterly fascinated by the mosquito and pushed her nose up against the case to see him better. Rosa is a very imaginative girl. In her mind's eye Rosa imagines that her classmates have helped her lift the glass cover from the display and she has asked the mosquito if he would give her a tour of the enormous museum. The mosquito agrees, needing some exercise after standing in the display case for ninety years. Rosa climbs up onto the wooden base and carefully sits down on the insect while having gently pulled a pink ribbon around his neck to harness and steer him.

                Now his wings have lifted up and began to flutter, faster and faster until he lifts off the display case and shoots through the hall. Rosa finds the ride thrilling as the mosquito leaves The Hall of North American Forests behind and streaks through The New York State Environment Pavilion, then through the Fritter Gallery bordering the south drive often used in the past to bring large specimens into the museum to add to their collections. He shoots straight ahead into The Hall of Human Origins where our early ancestors are on display in all their splendor. A quick right turn leaves us in The Hall of Meteorites with huge, pockmarked pieces of iron that have plummeted to earth through the ages. Next, Rosa is star struck by an enormous glittering, dazzling purple geode of amethyst ,welcoming the visitor into The Hall of Gems a treasure trove of impressive diamonds, gems and minerals all illuminated to accentuate their beauty, including The Star of India ,the largest opal in the world weighing in at 563.35 carats that had been stolen for a time from the museum along with The Delong Star Ruby and the Eagle Diamond on October 29,1964. Rosa is infatuated by the spectral display of a star on the opal. Rosa pulls back on the reins to see her birthstone in a case dedicated to this subject, one stone for each month of the year. Rosa travels through many interesting halls including Ocean Life with the enormous life-sized model of a blue whale suspended from the two-story high ceiling. Rosa and her winged steed fly past the many displays of sea life that surround the whale including Killer whales, Penguins, Walruses along with hundreds of other sea creatures. She even rises to the whale’s eye to stare into it.

                Next, she shoots out through the Hall of Biodiversity showing the infinite number of species that life had evolved into and then into the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall filled with star struck tourists and visitors buying entry tickets from long desks of museum employees. There are guards giving directions to visitors while other visitors stand entranced by towering fossilized dinosaurs positioned in mock combat. Rosa does not linger long gently nudging her  Pegasus to lunge up the open marble staircase to the second floor through the exotic hall of Asian Mammals then past the next level of the Astor Turret wizzing through the Hall of Asian Peoples, and onto Birds of the World and African Peoples straight on to a trip through time on the Cosmic Pathway of the Rose Planetarium starting billions of years ago with the Big-Bang and flying in concentric circles all the way down to historic times and the beginning of agriculture.

                Rosa’s mind seemed ready to explode with all the information that she is learning but now her teacher Miss Portent breaks into her dream state, “Rosa please move back and take your nose and hands from the glass to avoid picking up any germs. You will be able to see the mosquito better. I do not want you to catch a cold.”

“Yes, Miss Portent “says Rosa, wishing that she could have continued her imaginative tour through the museum. Walking through the museum would be fun also as she stuffs her pink ribbon back into her pocket. She would not be wrangling any more giant mosquitos that day. Being at the museum was much more spectacular than just reading the book about the museum that she has read many times with her mother about being there.

Jim