In an episode of Friends,Ross flirts with a pizza delivery woman, at one cringingly painful point telling her that they have to add the smell to methane. Well, let me tell you “the rest of the story”. Not of the Friends episode. You can go watch that yourself if you want. Let’s talk about the gas! Ready?
About an hour east of Athens, TX is the town of New London, TX. It was originally London, but there’s already another London, TX that registered with the Post Office first, so they had to change to New London. It’s a little north of Old London on Google Maps, if that helps. My parents were visiting Michele and I in Athens, somewhere been ‘03-05, and it should be some indication of how little there was to do in Athens that we found ourselves an hour east of it during their visit. That’s a bit unfair. Actually one of my favorite things about my folks is their unquenchable love of exploring a place they inhabit. My parents can probably draw complete road maps of several counties in eastern New York and western Vermont and Massachusetts. Six months after they moved to Texas, they had already been to more of central Texas than I had with a twenty year head start.
For whatever reason, driving between hither and yon, we found ourselves in New London, getting out of the car to stretch our legs. We walked past the front of the London Museum and Cafe. Always willing to check out an out of the way piece of history on a lark, we strolled into the best little museum I’ve ever visited. It details the history of the New London School Explosion, which killed or injured virtually every child and staff member of the small town, when the sub-basement space filled up with the natural gas from local oil wells and exploded.
The story is horrendous and tragic, and the tiny museum tackled the challenge of balancing the scope of the tragedy with the humanity of the townspeople upon whom it was visited. I remember it having display cases about the everyday lives and activities of this little town. I can still see the woolen football uniform and padded leather helmet, and imagine the farm boy who wore it proudly, and wonder if he survived. Of course it’s possible that the “everyday lives” as presented were an idyll, forever framed through the distorting lens of the instant the town changed. That’s inevitable, I suppose. In a few steps, I was looking at photos of a pulverized building, the heavy farm and oil drilling equipment used for search and rescue, and the hospital beds for the survivors. Next came the newspaper stories, obituaries, and timelines of legal cases, investigations, testimony and legal changes, including “adding the smell.” It’s also got a condolence letter from Adolph Hitler.
I would love to hear about any cool, little, out of the way museums and historic places you’ve discovered, especially since one-third of them may close in the wake of COVID.