“If you write about this on your blog,” my sister said, “be sure to tell them your family thinks you’re nuts.” Over the phone, I could practically hear her eyes rolling.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure my readers have already worked that out for themselves,” I replied.
I’d answered the call during my visit to the Haggin Museum in downtown Stockton, one of California’s least popular cities. Oh sure, it had enjoyed some glory years, when its San Joaquin River served as a major inland seaport for the Gold Rush and later when Benjamin Holt invented the Caterpillar tractor there. But in modern times, the city has distinguished itself by spectacularly high rates of crime, illiteracy, and obesity, fiscal mismanagement sparking a notorious bankruptcy, and consistently being ranked as one of the most dangerous and miserable cities in America.
“So you’re exploring Stockton’s museum scene.” This was my brother-in-law; apparently they were on speakerphone. “Only you two…”
But Rich and I were having a blast. The visit started out as an excuse to stretch our legs and grab some lunch halfway along the three-hour journey from our cottage near San Francisco to the family reunion in the Sierra mountains. Rich claims he thought we were going to the Haggis Museum to view prime examples of Scotland’s famous dish made of offal (animal guts, heart, liver, and lungs) mixed with suet and oatmeal then cooked inside a sheep’s stomach. Yes, I’ve had it, and it’s just as yummy as it sounds.
You can imagine how relieved Rich was to learn we were visiting an art and local history museum named for a long-ago big-wig.
Arriving at the Haggin Museum, it didn’t take us long to realize we’d stumbled on something extraordinary. The art was spectacular — one painting had hung in the White House — and the lively history section included the ghoulish exhibit of a wooden trunk in which a woman had stashed the body of an inconvenient third husband. An unusual and quirky touch was provided by signs and pamphlets inviting us to consider life’s Big Questions — not hard to do after looking at the blood-soaked trunk of a murderess. (More about that later.)
Stockton’s early good fortune included acquiring art during the nineteenth century, when artists devoted whole careers to capturing the majesty and romance of America’s vast landscapes and demonstrating how well man and nature were co-existing. Their style, known as the Hudson River School, soon carried them from the East Coast to the Golden State, where each new painting seemed to shout, “Think the Hudson Valley is cool? Wait till you see Yosemite!” Ronald Reagan borrowed the Haggin’s “Looking up Yosemite Valley” for the White House press room to glamorize his California roots. You can’t really view these landscapes without hearing a glorious swell of symphony music in your head.
But the Haggin curators didn’t stop there. Next to Ralph Albert Blakelock’s “The Canoe,” a small sign asked, “What does being alone feel like to you?” Beside Albert Bierstadt’s “Moose” I read, “What do you remember about the first time you saw a wild animal?” Pamphlets invited us to continue our inner journey via self-guided tours with themes such as “Joy” and “Calm.” The one on “Empowerment” advises you to try “walking through this world confident in your strength as well as your vulnerabilities. It is, after all, the sum of the two that renders us human.” Grand philosophical thoughts, indeed.
Every museum is designed to tell us something about what it means to be human, and the Haggin offers many perspectives, from fresh-faced kids shown in early Kellogg ads to Mississippi blues legends to Stockton’s entrepreneurs.
Museums also remind us how attitudes change over time. In 1911, the main concern about J. C. Leyendecker’s Cooper Underwear ad was showing the clinging garment while avoiding any hint of the male anatomy beneath. Apparently the homoerotic pose of the artist’s long-time partner/model, shown slipping out of a gorgeous robe, didn’t raise any eyebrows.
And then, of course, there was the famous trunk of bigamist and murderess Emma LeDoux.
It seems that in 1905 Emma found herself with an embarrassing excess of husbands. Her first marriage had ended in divorce, her second husband died of a suspicious “gastroenteritis,” and after separating from her third, she married Number 4. Growing concerned Number 3 might make things awkward, she poisoned him and stuffed him, still living, into a trunk which she paid someone to deliver to the train depot for shipment to another town. Unfortunately for the plan, she forgot to affix the address label (oops!), and the trunk sat around until the smell alerted authorities something dodgy was going on.
Anyway, my point — and you suspected I’d get around to one eventually, didn’t you? — is that fascinating museums lurk in the most unlikely places. Here in California I’ve spent many happy hours exploring such offbeat gems as the
Bigfoot Discovery Museum
, the
Museum of International Propaganda
, and the tribute to
Rosie the Riveter
.
Every year during the family reunion, I visit the 6,500-acre
Calaveras Big Trees State Park
, a living museum preserving some of the world’s biggest, oldest trees. It was discovered during the Gold Rush, when a hunter, hired to keep prospectors fed, was chasing a wounded grizzly (some say the bear was chasing him) when he stumbled upon a grove of giant sequoias. The grandest was 280 feet tall and 1,244 years old, and once word got out, it wasn’t long before men decided to destroy it. They peeled off the bark to be reassembled as a cash-generating public spectacle. This killed the tree, so they cut it down and made a dance floor on the stump and a bowling alley inside the trunk. The wanton destruction became a rallying cry for conservation, resulting in the park.
I’ve found there are offbeat gems everywhere, often the work of some fanatical collector, mad genius, or quirk of history. Kaunas, Lithuania, for instance, has both the
Devil’s Museum
and the
Atomic Bunker Museum
. Prague offers the suitably gloomy and paranoid KGB Museum, the surprisingly charming
Museum of Communism
, the surreal
Kafka Museum
, and the 46 outfits worn by the famous Infant Jesus of Prague statue upstairs in the Church of Our Lady Victorious. Zagreb, Croatia is home to the unforgettable
Museum of Broken Relationships
. The list goes on and on.
So if you like unusual entertainment, take a look around wherever you live as well as anyplace you may travel. I’ve discovered ChatGPT literally doesn’t know how to search for quirky stuff, so use Google to burrow down past the “top five museums everyone must see” to more obscure offerings. You’ll soon discover the peculiar charms of something wholly original. Be curious and persistent. And above all, ignore the snarky remarks from family and friends who have not yet embraced the idea of traveling like a nutter.
I can’t believe those Hudson River School painters never captured a heartwarming nature scene like this! At our family reunion, a mother bear and three cubs took matters into their own paws and broke into the “bearproof” garbage box to enjoy a picnic of leftovers.
JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS’ WORLD TOUR SO FAR
IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS’ TOUR OF CALIFORNIA
Boonville: A Town So Remote It Has Its Own Language (Anderson Valley)
Can’t Stop the Madness, But Let’s Slow It Down a Bit (Thrift Shops)
It’s Only a Movie. Or Is It? (Bodega Bay)
Why I Spray-Painted My Shoes (Theme Weddings)
Please, Please, Please Don’t Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo)
Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival)
Why Isn’t Anyone Banning My Books? (Alameda)
When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races)
Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda’s Macabre Market)
My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space)
The Nutters’ Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen)
Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown)
For Nutters, There’s No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day)
Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour?
SPRING 2023: THE NUTTERS’ TOUR OF SPAIN
Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona)
I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona)
Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo)
Travel Alert: You Can’t Always Get What You Want..
.
(Madrid & Burgos)
Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos
(Ja
én & Valdepeñas)
All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing)
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