Holiday Lights!

I didn't do a holiday light contest this year, and it's a good thing I didn't, because there is a real shortage of over-the-top displays this season. Boo hiss to this economy. Still, a few people in my South St Louis neighborhood are still bringing Clark Griswold to the party, and since I didn't have time to write a real post this week, I thought I'd share some pictures I took on a walk last night.





I should have taken Action Cam of this one, because they have outdoor speakers and Elvis was singing Blue Christmas:



and my favorite from last year:



I have a big surprise cooking for January! Just wait til you see! I hope everyone has a happy holiday!

Leila's Hair Museum

On the way to St Joseph, we decided to see if we could get into Leila's Hair Museum. We arrived in Independence five minutes before they closed, but Nancy was kind enough to stay late to give us the tour. And oh what a tour! You don't expect much when you walk in, since the museum is inside a cosmetology school in a strip mall, but Leila has over 2000 pieces of art and jewelry made from human hair.





No photography is allowed inside the actual museum, but Keith was able to get some excellent photos of the hair wreaths in the lobby. Hair wreaths were like scrapbooking or family trees. They date back to the 1400s, but were particularly popular during Victorian times. They were made from hair from all family members and usually in the shape of a lucky horseshoe.





Each "flower" is made of hair wrapped around wire. It's mind boggling to contemplate the amount of skill and patience needed to create these hair wreaths. Leila's Hair Museum is the only one of it's kind in the world (although you will sometimes see private collections of hair art in some older funeral homes) and she teaches classes on how to make the wreaths. The Hair Museum is the headquarters of the Victorian Hairwork Society.



In addition to the wreaths, she has thousands of items of jewelry, including earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and watch fobs. This was another popular way to remember loved ones. A soldier going to war or a family emigrating to America couldn't always take the hair wreath with them, but they could take a watch fob or earrings. A common misconception, if you've even heard of Victorian hair art at all before now, is that it always represented someone who was deceased. While some of the jewelry items would have been funeral pieces, the vast majority were made from hair of people who were still living at the time.



In addition to hair wreaths and jewelry, Leila has hair from famous people (my favorite was Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr framed together) and FOUR relics entrusted to her care by Catholic churches around the world, papal documents and all. Two are from the True Cross, one is a saint I can't remember, and one is hair from the Virgin Mary. MARY'S HAIR, in the hair museum in Independence, Missouri! We could hardly believe it. Well, the two of us raised Catholic could hardly believe it. The other two couldn't figure out what we were on about, I'm sure.



I wish I had pictures from inside the museum. There is just so much stuff, and they know the history of so many of the individual pieces. Nancy is a fantastic guide and was so kind to let us hang out as long as we wanted to. If you find yourself in the area of Independence, MO (right outside Kansas City), Leila's Hair Museum is definitely worth a visit. You can read more about it, and see some pictures of the museum itself, at RoadsideAmerica.com. Admission is $3 and they are open Monday-Saturday, 9am-4:30pm.

Jesse James House

I put it to a vote and Jesse James won for next stop on the Highway 70 Tour. As many of you already know, Jesse James and his brother Frank James, along with the Younger brothers and various others, formed the James-Younger Gang and were responsible for stagecoach, bank, and train robberies all over the Midwest and South in the late 1800s. Later, the band of outlaws rearranged the ranks somewhat and then it was just the James Gang. Numerous locations in Missouri (and probably other states as well), including Meramec Caverns and Mark Twain Cave, claim to have been hideouts for the James-Younger or James Gang at one time or another.



This house, though, is where Jesse James was killed in 1882. The house has actually been moved twice. It was originally located at 1318 Lafayette, and then in 1939 it was moved to a location on Belt Highway, which is a much busier street. In 1977 it was moved to it's current location at 12th and Mitchell, 2 blocks south of its original location.



Jesse lived here with his wife and two children. He had said that the only way he could be killed was by someone from Missouri, in whom he had placed his trust, and even then his back would have to be turned. He was shot from behind by Bob Ford, a member of the James Gang, in 1882, while Jesse was straightening a picture on the wall.



The museum advertises "Come see the bullet hole!" The bullet hole itself was originally much smaller, but souvenir hunters enlarged it over the years. That's why it is now protected behind glass.



Also pillaged was splinters of the bloodstained floor.



You may remember from my post about the Jesse James Wax Museum in Stanton, MO that there was some dispute as to whether or not it was ACTUALLY Jesse James who was shot that day. Some maintain that it was an elaborate hoax and that Jesse lived out his life as J. Frank Dalton in Texas.



This is one of the reasons that Jesse's grave in Kearny, MO was exhumed in 1997. The picture below contains some of the artifacts that were recovered, including the coffin handles, a pin he was wearing in the death photo, and a bullet recovered from his lung area (from an earlier shooting).



Of course, if there is any kind of diorama in motion, we have to have the action cam. This is a cast of Jesse's skull taken from the exhumation that shows the fatal bullet trajectory.



But wait! That skull has no exit wound! If the bullet didn't exit, what made the famous bullet hole in the wall? Well, now they think that Charley Ford, Bob's brother, also took a shot at Jesse, and that's where the bullet hole in the wall came from. That's one, theory, anyway. There are as many variations on the James Gang stories as there are rumored hideouts.

The Jesse James Home is located on the grounds of the Patee House Museum at 12th and Penn in St Joseph, MO. Admission is $3 for adults, $2 for seniors, and $1.50 for students.

Jim the Wonder Dog!

Some of the CC&G posse (Francis, Keith, & Courtney) joined me this weekend for a trip to St Joseph, MO and a couple stops along the way. We visited so many awesome places it's going to take me awhile to get organized. Luckily, Jim the Wonder Dog's Memorial Garden in Marshall, MO tells its own story. To see a larger version, click on a picture, and then click on it again at the Photobucket website.

Jim the Wonder Dog's Memorial Garden is located at 101 North Lafayette and his grave is located at 801 E Yerby. Marshall, MO is just north of Highway 70, about 60 miles west of Columbia (180 miles from St Louis).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Francis and I were part of the balloon wrangling team this morning with one of my favorite charities, Annie's Hope. I didn't get many pictures because it was cold and raining, and we had a balloon that was really difficult to manage in the wind, but you can see more behind-the-scenes parade details in my post from 2008 by clicking here.

Since I feel obligated to give you some kind of educational content, did you know today is the 93rd Turkey Day football game between the Webster Groves Statesmen and the Kirkwood Pioneers? It's the oldest high school football rivalry west of the Mississippi. The trophy for the game is called the Frisco Bell, being as it is a bell from a retired locomotive that was donated by the Frisco Railroad in the 1950s. One of the reasons that the St Louis Rams do not play on Thanksgiving (according to wikipedia, so take that as you will) is because of the Kirkwood/Webster game. The St Louis (football, now Arizona) Cardinals tried to have Thanksgiving Games in the 1970s but gave up after 3 years and hosting reverted to Dallas.

I myself am a Webster Groves alum. GO STATESMEN! I can't bear the thought of going back out in this nasty weather, but I am with them in spirit, from my couch, in my orange and black sweats.

The Magic House

I think The Magic House is one of St Louis's most underrated attractions, probably because it's called a Children's Museum. The City Museum gets all the hype, and it is great, but I realized after a trip to The Magic House that you don't actually learn a whole lot at the City Museum, you just run wild and climb on things.



The Magic House is awesome because every single thing you play with is teaching you something, and it is all totally engaging, regardless of your age. On this visit a couple weekends ago I was joined by Francis, Amy, Kevin, and Rich, and no kids. The five of us are 25-32 and played for 3 hours straight. Then we took a snack break at the cafe (which is way cheaper than the average tourist attraction) and realized we still hadn't hit an entire wing of the building.



If you are our age and don't have kids, or if your kids are grown, it has probably been awhile since you visited The Magic House. You probably remember it as a house. A giant Victorian mansion, but a house all the same. Since then, they have added two major additions, and you can barely see the original house anymore!



Still, a lot of the same exhibits from the original house are still around. You might recognize some of them in the first few pictures. (And yes, the electrostatic generator is still there.) The museum itself covers so much ground and so many different topics that this blog post would go on forever if I used all my pictures. Instead, I'm just going to tell you about my two favorite parts.



First of all, the reason I jumped on the Groupon (5 admissions for $20) a couple months ago is because in my day job, as a commercial flooring estimator, I bid the most recent addition. We didn't actually do the work here, but I'd seen the drawings and wanted to see how some of the concepts went from blueprint to real-world.



How excited was I to see that they have a whole construction site outside for kids to learn about how a house is built? This part wouldn't have been on the drawings that I saw, because it is outside.



They have hard hats and tool belts, and all kinds of stations that show the different steps from concept to completion. This is my job, here in the construction trailer.



They have blueprints to show how to estimate materials, and design boards to show how architects pick out finishes.



Over in the house under construction, you learn how to lay floors and install insulation.





I know I said I was going to stick to my two favorite areas, but I have to cheat a little bit to show you one of the things I most wanted to see, based on the blueprints.



A replica of the Presidential Seal rug from the Oval Office! I also just have to sneak in this gratitous picture of the Presedential mouse hole, because it's cute, and I had to lay on the ground to get the picture:



I see that and wonder which trade had to estimate/build that little cubby, and how much it must have brightened their day, even if they won't admit it. There's a reason everyone in town bids these kinds of jobs, because it's a break from the monotony of "office, school, hospital, office, school, hospital."

Onward to the VERY BEST PART! I remember my young cousins being in town a few years ago and telling me about this, and I was so mad that I'd been unable to get the day off.



It's a Sherlock Holmes mystery to solve! Grab your detective notebook and pencil and follow the clues!











The secret passage through the bookshelf gets you into a room where you can climb into the ductwork to find another clue. This was one of the very few things in the museum we were too big for (along with all the trenchcoats, lab coats, superhero capes, judges robes, and any other costumes I may have missed). Then you move into the lab to analyze the evidence.



This part was my favorite not only because it was fun to solve, but also because it illustrates perfectly how well the museum is designed for parents and kids to work together. It wasn't too hard for kids to figure out, and it wasn't so easy that parents would get bored.

I hate to end it here. I left out so much good stuff, including the Math Path, the Lewis and Clark obstacle course, the whole wing on government with its scavenger hunt and karaoke, the Super Kids Save the World (limited engagement through January 17), the Water Works, the Bubble Room, and so much more! I guess you will just have to check it out for yourself. Admission is $8.75 for ages one and up. Hours vary by season, so check the website (linked at the beginning of this post).