Chautauqua

Yesterday was the first normal day in a month. Well, kind of normal. OK. The first time since I got Covid and recovered that I sat and talked with a living, breathing, human being face-to-face other than the two kids I chatted briefly with when I picked up my groceries. I took four packs of notecards to the museum and chatted with the new director for a while — mostly about politics, strangely. While I was there, an old man came in — a really interesting old man who turned out to have been a retired archeology professor from Indiana — Purdue.

A long time ago I had an idea for the museum and then let it go because of 2020 and the life situation of the former director, my friend Louise. After seeing him, I flashed back to my idea and presented it to the new director. I think we might try to do it. My idea was holding a Chautauqua at the museum in the summer.

Chautauqua is a VERY late 19th century educational movement, that didn’t fade away until the 1930s. They still exist — particularly in their original location in Chautauqua New York. They were a movement, a really beautiful movement with the kind of objectives I think we could really use right now.

During my university life in Boulder attending the University of Colorado I was very immersed in the 19th century. I was an American Literature major. One of the cool things in Boulder is that it was a historical home to a Chautauqua every summer — the old buildings are still there along with the original cabins. When I was a student, the cabins were used as married student housing. In 1997 my best hiking pal — who’d moved to Tennessee — and I met in Colorado. I drove from San Diego with two dogs and picked her up at the airport in Denver. We did a bunch of hiking and stayed in a cabin at Chautauqua. In recent years it’s been gussied up and programs have begun again.

Anyway, it occurred to me that the museum could be a small Chautauqua with speakers like the retired archeologist I met yesterday. There’s a guy in Colorado who does Hal Holbrook type costumed representations of historical figures who might want to be invited, and I would do that; I would “become” Sarah Josepha Hale for twenty minutes as part of the whole thing, talk about Godey’s Lady’s Book and why she pressured Abraham Lincoln so hard to set aside a Thanksgiving Day.

The museum director loved the idea and we’re going to start planning.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2022/07/21/ragtag-daily-prompt-thursday-flashback/