[I loved this Alaskan canoe when you could see the people in it.]

The more things change, the more they stay they stay the same…

-Anon.

I never understood the above quote, except to say that I think it means that history repeats itself.

I certainly can get that…considering the Trump Era.  You can figure the rest out for yourself…if you believe in reading history and science.

But’s that’s not the point of this post.  No, I want to go back when I was about ten years old and my parents took me to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).  It was decades ago…long before The Night At The Museum.  

When I was a child, I saw the dioramas of the ice ages, the history of farming along the Hudson valley, the mineral crystals as large as a park bench and, of course, the dinosaurs!

Over the years, when I was a teacher in NYC,  I had chaperoned so many trips to the AMNH that I think I should have been on their payroll.

What is amazing is that some of the building on Central Park West and between 81St and 77th Street has changed dramatically…and some of the exhibits haven’t changed since I was a child. The beautiful old Hayden Planetarium gave way to a giant glass cube.  More ‘state of the art’ but less architecturally beautiful.

[Hill of skulls…I don’t know what skulls they are.]

Is that good?  Shouldn’t museums remains in a state of stasis or should they “change with the times”?

Want my opinion?

I want both.  Up to date science about climate change (yes, it’s real) and astronomy (there’s so much new stuff out there, it will blow your Star Trek Mind).

Take me to the old galleries that haven’t changed in decades and let me dream about how I fell in love with science, anthropology, evolution, minerals and the stars when I was a child.

And, take me to the Hall of the Native Northwest Americans.  Show me the ceremonial mask that is supposed to

be ‘haunted’.  Night staff won’t go near it.

[Is this the haunted mask? I don’t know.]

Then, tell me that science and myth don’t blend in a beautiful and mysterious way. And, I’m praying to whoever may be the god of myth and history and childhood, I would love to walk my grandson, Elias, through the halls of history and myth and childhood.

It meant so much so me and I wish I could pass it on to my grandchildren.

That’s what Natural History (and family history) is all about.