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By Doug, December 4, 2009 19:56

The Lunchbox Museum, Columbus, Georgia.

We all had them, didn’t we?  Those cool metal lunchboxes we toted to school every day with our peanut butter and jelly sandwich and maybe, if we were lucky, a Jell-O pudding cup!  Mine was a school bus with Mickey and his friends but I remember other kids who had Scooby and the gang, Bugs Bunny or maybe Barbie, if you were a “yucky” girl.

He [Allen Woodall] began collecting lunch boxes a mere four years ago, because, as he puts it, “they’re just so neat!” He now has more than 1,000 lunch boxes and related items, including thermoses, coolers and even tobacco tins that doubled as lunch boxes.

Of course, if there’s something to collect, someone will collect it and eventually decide the world needs a museum to house the prized collection.  Lunchboxes are no exception!  The “World’s Largest” lunchbox museum is in Columbus, Georgia (conveniently located near the old farmers’ market in the historic downtown area).

The Lunchbox Museum

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By Doug, July 4, 2009 05:10

National Museum of Patriotism

Capitalizing on the swelling of patriotic feelings after 9/11, The National Museum of Patriotism in Atlanta, Georgia takes the visitor through some of the events that have made the United States what it is today. Exhibits include a Hall of Patriots, Symbols of America, the Olympics, First Responders and more. Although it’s easy to be cynical about this “national” museum being in Atlanta rather than New York or DC and the view of history presented within its halls is straight out of high school textbooks (with any impropriety completely absent), the museum does a good job of instilling a valuable sense of national pride.

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By Doug, June 20, 2009 09:28

The Wren's Nest - Joel Chandler Harris' Home

Most people today have heard of Splash Mountain at the Disney parks and some of those people realize the story behind the ride is from a movie called Song of the South. Still fewer people know the origin of that story, Uncle Remus. Joel Chandler Harris wrote the Uncle Remus stories from stories he heard as a child, passed down from slaves. It was a subset of those tales told by slaves that eventually became the story inside Splash Mountain.

Ironically, the movie derived from old slave stories, Song of the South, hasn’t been released in the United States for many years because, rumor has it, Disney is afraid the movie will offend blacks. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the blacks in the movie are the only ones with their heads on straight and it’s the white people who should be offended, but that has nothing to do with the point of this post and I digress.

So much for the insightful history lesson. On to the attraction!

The Wren’s Nest is Harris’ restored home is Atlanta Georgia. Built in 1870, the home was named in 1900 after a pair of wrens nested in Harris’ mailbox that spring. He quickly installed a second mailbox so as not to disturb the nesting pair. Visitors can see his house, buy copies of his books (in either their original form or an easier to read, modern form) and hear the stories of Br’er Rabbit retold by professional storytellers.

If you spend a day or two in Atlanta, I’d recommend dedicating an hour or two to this attraction.