The Nixon library also attracts a lot of people who LOVE Nixon; I overheard a lot of these sorts of conversations in a week there. There's a slightly different feel to it also because there's a complex relationship between NARA and the foundation that controlled some of the materials in the museum and available in the collection but it's plain that lots of people visit thinking they're at a memorial for a martyr.
I loved this post so much both for the RRPL and the all too true stories about being an academic historian in the wild. And kudos to you for taking a deep breath and plunging in at the gravesite. I haven’t yet done the IRS bit. But after one too many encounters with elderly white men on planes who wanted to tell me how it really was I’ve taken to pulling up my hoodie and plugging in headphones. Still one time when I was dozing off while having left Jan Golinski’s excellent book, British Weather and the Climate of the Enlightenment, on my tray table, my mustachioed row mate leaned into my personal space, nearly under my hoodie, to ask me if I was “reading about the weather.”
The Nixon library also attracts a lot of people who LOVE Nixon; I overheard a lot of these sorts of conversations in a week there. There's a slightly different feel to it also because there's a complex relationship between NARA and the foundation that controlled some of the materials in the museum and available in the collection but it's plain that lots of people visit thinking they're at a memorial for a martyr.
My cousin was the designer for the interior of the RR Library. If you really want a hoot visit the empty Clinton presidential Library.
Yes I enjoyed this - funny and so well observed. At the same time, doesn't it convey s a troubling condescension?
I loved this post so much both for the RRPL and the all too true stories about being an academic historian in the wild. And kudos to you for taking a deep breath and plunging in at the gravesite. I haven’t yet done the IRS bit. But after one too many encounters with elderly white men on planes who wanted to tell me how it really was I’ve taken to pulling up my hoodie and plugging in headphones. Still one time when I was dozing off while having left Jan Golinski’s excellent book, British Weather and the Climate of the Enlightenment, on my tray table, my mustachioed row mate leaned into my personal space, nearly under my hoodie, to ask me if I was “reading about the weather.”