Heritage Museums & Gardens Blog Spot

Movies Under the Stars

Lights, camera, action!  Everyone has that favorite movie, the one that can be watched 100 times, that you know every line to, and you love to share with others.  Watching a new or favorite movie in a theater or at home is fine, but one of the most unique and memorable ways to watch a film is to do it outside.  Richard M. Hollingshead knew this and is credited with creating the first drive-in movie theater, for which he received the patent in 1933.  Hollingshead hung a sheet in his backyard, put a speaker behind the screen, and measured out the spacing between the cars to be sure everyone had the perfect view.  With that, the drive-in movie theater was born!

One of the first five drive-in theaters in the country was actually in Weymouth, Massachusetts, opening in May of 1936.  World War II slowed the construction of drive-in theaters (rubber and gas were being rationed; builders were needed to create equipment for the military), but after the war, theaters were in high demand as the next big thing.  Many theaters actually hosted ‘open houses’ to teach people how to use the new theaters, learning how to park, where to put the speakers, and proper etiquette.  Theaters could be various sizes—the largest in Detroit, Michigan could accommodate as many as 3,000 cars at once;  small theaters might only hold 50 cars.  In the 1950s, drive-ins featured activities such as playgrounds, mini golf, snack stands, full restaurants, and the famous intermission trailers encouraging people to visit the snack bar.  In 2000, the Library of Congress chose the famous trailer “Let’s All Go To the Lobby” for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for its cultural and historical significance! 

By the 1960s and 1970s, the golden age of the drive-in theater was fading.  Many closed over the following decades.  By the 1990s fewer than 1,000 drive-in theaters were left in the country.  Today only 5 drive-in theaters survive in Massachusetts and only one on Cape Cod.  The Wellfleet Drive-In on Route 6A in South Wellfleet opened in 1957 and has been a special summer memory for generations of Cape Codders.  

Even if you can’t make the drive down Cape, you can still enjoy the experience of movies under the stars on a late summer evening with Heritage’s summer family movie series!   Please join us for films, fun and lots of popcorn, all under the night sky! Here’s the line up for 2010:

Click each date for more information

August 27: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
September 3: The Princess and the Frog
September 10: Finding Nemo
September 17: Muppet Treasure Island

For more information about existing drive-ins, check out www.driveinmovie.com.

Authenticity and the Museum

What makes museums like no place else?   One answer is the objects they hold.  Television, books and the internet can transport us across the globe or back in time, but even the most cutting edge technology can’t replace our experience of the real thing:  the battle flag riddled with bullet holes, the grace or despair captured in a famous marble sculpture, the whimsy and invention of hand-carved scrimshaw.  Every object has a story to tell:

“I was there,” it says, “when history was made,” or
“I am the work of a master; I am the result of a lifetime of striving,” or
“I am an everyday thing, used long ago, by someone who was a lot like you.” 

Museums show us the rare, the priceless, the amazing, as well as the typical and ordinary.  Museums give us facets of the human story reflected in the objects we make and use, keep and discard.  They let us reach through time to touch the people who shaped and were shaped by these things they left behind.  When the rest of the world demands that we go faster and faster, museums let us pause to discover, connect and marvel.  Throw in a ride on the carousel and a romp in Hidden Hollow and you’ve got a pretty good day.

On Saturday, August 21 you and your family can discover the stories objects are waiting to tell during a special Art Explorations event.  From 10am to 3pm kids and parents can spend a little unhurried time exploring the exhibits and their own creativity, making some artifacts of their own in the process.  Sculpt a bird carving from foam, experiment with crazy painting techniques or see
stonecarver and archaeologist Dave Wheelock demonstrate traditional 18^th century gravestone carving.  There’s a full slate of fun among the art and artifacts, so come by for an authentically good time.       

BONUS: And if you’re interested in the stories objects tell, here’s a recommendation you just might love:  Check out BBC Radio 4’s podcast series, A History of the World in 100 Objects.  Each brief but fascinating episode highlights an object from the British Museum’s collection to explain a critical milestone in human history.  They’re addictive, they’re available on iTunes and best of all, they’re FREE.     http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ahow.

Meet Porcus!

Meet Porcus, our resident Composting Pig.  Porcus has been helping the Horticulture team make things a little greener here at Heritage.  Visitors, too, can get in on the composting fun by feeding Porcus and then giving him a quick roll around.  Pretty soon, viola! Weeds and leaves go in one end and dark, nutrient-rich garden compost comes out the other.

If you’re like some of us here at the museum, maybe composting has been somewhere near the bottom of your to do list for a while now.  There are so many benefits to composting that you know you ought to be doing it, but just haven’t found the time to figure out how.  If this sounds familiar, then this is your lucky day!  Consider this your composting primer!

Composting  is beneficial in lots of ways.   Turning biodegradable kitchen and garden scraps into fertile compost not only improves whatever soil you add it to, it also decreases the waste that ends up in our already over-burdened landfills.  The EPA estimates that kitchen and yard waste makes up nearly a quarter of the American waste stream.  And it’s useful stuff we’re throwing away!  Compost added to your regular garden soil can improve the health and abundance of plants while also helping to suppress plant diseases.  

So, where to start?  Well, there are several options.  Start with a set up that will work for the space you have and the effort you’re willing to give it.  “Hot composting,” in which rapid decomposition actually raises the temperature of the compost, works the fastest.  An example of hot composing in action might be a bin for food and lawn scraps that can be turned daily. This kind of set up will create finished compost in as little as a couple of weeks.  “Cold composting,” which more closely resembles natural decomposition, requires much less effort.  An open pile of lawn and yard clippings will compost without much attention, but it might take as long as a year to do so.    

An  important thing to remember is that composting works best when scraps containing nitrogen (such as fresh lawn clippings and other green waste) are mixed with scraps containing carbon (like dead leaves).  The organisms that speed decomposition also need water and air, so keeping the pile moist and aerated (by turning it) will help, too.

What shouldn’t you put in a compost heap?  Meat and dairy scraps, which attract animals, for one.  Diseased plant matter and pet waste (such as kitty litter) can carry or spread disease. Hot composting will kill most weeds, but throwing weeds into a cold compost heap will probably just help spread them around.  Lawn trimmings that have been treated with pesticides will kill the good organisms that are working so hard to break down your compost pile, so leave them out. 

You can find other tips on composting from our Horticulture team here. REALLY interested?  Check out these sites for some in depth info: 

http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/feature/backyard/compost.html

http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/rrr/composting/index.htm

http://www.composting101.com/

And if you just want a Porcus of your very own, you can find them here.  

Nature Deficit Disorder

Did you play outside as a kid?  How did your experiences form the adult you became?  A colleague at a nature center recently shared that children visiting their site were upset that they “took the tadpoles off display for the summer,” not understanding, of course, that the tadpoles had become frogs.  This was after they asked the naturalist to squirt earthworms with hand sanitizer before they would touch them!  Perhaps you have observed for yourself the growing disconnect between children and nature.

As described in Richard Louv’s critically acclaimed book Last Child in the Woods, the amount of time children spend outdoors has declined dramatically in recent years—by four hours per week between 1981 and 1997.  In an increasingly over-scheduled and electronically-engaged world, the average child today spends six hours per day in front of a computer or television, but only four minutes per day in unstructured outdoor activity.  Perhaps it should be no surprise then that the average preschooler can identify over 100 corporate logos but fewer than ten backyard plants or animals.  The outdoors around children has changed as well, as increased development has led to a lack of open, natural spaces and less and less space is perceived as safe.  Fears of “stranger danger” have caused adults to restrict the areas in which children are allowed to roam freely outdoors.

Educators and mental health professionals worldwide are concerned that children today are no longer able to spend long, unstructured hours outdoors creating bonds with nature—certainly not in ways previous generations enjoyed.  Described as “nature deficit disorder” in Louv’s book, this situation has gained national attention and study. 

Research shows that children benefit greatly from experiencing the natural world as a regular part of their healthy growth and development, and that these benefits have a lasting impact, especially when positive outdoor experiences come at an early age.  Time outdoors improves children’s attention, observation and problem solving skills and reduces the risk of childhood obesity and diabetes.  Being outdoors makes kids happy, decreasing anxiety, depression and aggression.  Positive outdoor experiences have also been shown to replace children’s attitudes of fear or dislike of nature with appreciation, caring and enjoyment.

Heritage Museums & Gardens is joining the nationwide movement to help reconnect kids with  
nature.  On August 3, a new feature called Hidden Hollow will open to the public.  In this safe, beautiful outdoor space, families with children ages 2-10 can visit activity areas on their own or participate in programs designed to help break down the obstacles that keep children from discovering and enjoying the natural world.  Click here for more information.