Behold!  The best response yet from our visitor surveys (you know, what you fill out after your tour to give us feedback):

Question: Is there any way we could improve your next visit to the Wren’s Nest?

(Real, not making this up, terrifically optimistic) Answer: “Spend the night with Nannie!”

Our HVAC system was installed about twenty years ago.  Since that time, there have been tremendous advances in technology and efficiency.  Perhaps you have heard of a little thing I like to call “computers.”

Plus, an aging system often hemorrhages money.  As you might have guessed, ours is no exception.

To evaluate your HVAC system properly, you’re going to need a lot of data.  Like, a year or two’s worth of data.  Hence, we’ve put data loggers in just about every room, though I can’t always remember exactly where.

From what I’ve gathered about HVAC systems in historic preservation settings — which is, admittedly, very little — there are two schools of thought:

1. “You need a system that’s going to cost $30,000.”
2. “You need a system that’s going to cost $400,000.”

That’s… a difference.  I think it breaks down to being pretty darn efficient for $30K or being ridiculously efficient for nearly half a million dollars.

Luckily for the Wren’s Nest, many house museums are finding that their HVAC systems are over-designed and inefficient.  I wonder what it’s like to discover something in your museum is over-designed.  A boy can dream, I guess.

The most exciting part of data logging is that once a month I have the honor of collecting the data and refreshing each data logger.  It’s almost hard to believe I get paid to do it.

532 miles to Salt Lake City.

We considered imposing on our hosts — “Hey!  Why not invite us to Thanksgiving dinner with your extended family!” — to stay another day and really see the sites.  But frankly, I’m not that excited about house museums.

Thanksgiving week is perhaps not the best time to tour house museums because they’re not so much open as they are closed.  In some ways, this was helpful — at this point in the trip Susie wanted nothing more than to be out of the car, and Hazel had conceded defeat.  In other ways, well, we didn’t get to go inside too many museums.

Regardless, we hit the road and stopped by three museums en route to Salt Lake.

First, the home of “Unsinkable” Molly Brown.

Fans of the film Titanic will no doubt remember Molly Margaret Brown as the unforgettable something something.  I still haven’t seen that one.

The exterior was surprisingly graphic.

Just down the street was the Byers-Evans House Museum.

It had decidedly less frontal nudity than the Molly Brown House.  Both houses have what looks like an excellent location: the heart of the Golden Triangle Museum District.  I’ll have to go back.

–

Farther up the road, we looked for the Historic Governor’s Mansion in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Unfortunately, I really had to go to the bathroom, so we gave up and headed straight to Laramie.  We stumbled upon the Historic Ivinson Mansion.

It’s the home of the Laramie Plains Museum.

By this point it was snowing and getting dark, and we were so over Wyoming.

Not far before the Utah line we stopped at the Flying J in Rock Springs for Thanksgiving dinner.

We had grilled chicken sandwiches.  They were reasonable.

Topics Discussed: Bailey White’s Thanksgiving Stories on NPR, How Butch Cassidy Was a Real Dude Surprisingly Enough

(Gallant executive director LAIN SHAKESPEARE prepares to leave the Wren’s Nest when the doorbell rings.  CRAZY WOMAN IN PINK, who had been seen mysteriously rolling a suitcase around in the back yard, appears at the door. LAIN does not know she is crazy.)

LAIN: Hi!  Are you here for a tour?

WOMAN: Yes!  May I come in?

LAIN: Actually, we closed at 2:30.  And normally I’d let you come in but I’m running late.

WOMAN: Aha!  Will you be open tomorrow?  And how much does a tour cost?

LAIN: Yes, and it’s $8 for adults.

WOMAN: Would you charge me if I said this was my house?

(LAIN cannot respond to this question and stares vacantly for nine beats.)

LAIN:  …yes, I think I would.

WOMAN:  But this is my house.  I built it.  So you’re going to charge me to see it!?!

LAIN: (voice cracking) …oh?

WOMAN: Yes, I built this house with my husband and my brother.

LAIN: (pointing to the house) Are we… talking about… the Wren’s Nest?

WOMAN: Yes!  In fact, I have things planted all around the house.

LAIN: Things?  What kind of things?

WOMAN: (ignoring this) When my husband and I divorced, we decided to keep this house as neutral ground.  So we can both come here.

(LAIN squints real hard, as if it will make this woman make sense.)

WOMAN:  At least, that’s the way it is until I can move all my stuff out.

LAIN: What kind of stuff do you have in here?

WOMAN: (smiling wide) My Ouija board.  And Jumanji.  Have you ever heard of Jumanji?  Say, is this house haunted?

LAIN: Ma’am?  I don’t think so.  Do you have somewhere you can stay?

WOMAN: This is my house.

LAIN: Yes, but I mean for toni–

WOMAN: (emphatically, but with a smile) My house.

(LAIN and WOMAN exchange awkward goodbye, ending the most confusing conversation that has occurred on the premises in recent memory.)

–
EDIT, 1:59 PM:  (Editor’s note–In my rush to get everything down on paper, I totally forgot the wackiest part!  Please forgive, and you can insert these lines anywhere above where it makes sense.)

LAIN: So, um, what’s your name?  How long have you been in the neighborhood?

WOMAN: I am the mother of time.

Guy I’m watching in the parking lot: “Yeah, I’m here in the parking lot. How do I get in?”

Me: “…through the front door.”

You’d think that getting inside the Wren’s Nest would be pretty straight forward. Apparently, it’s not.

Without fail, every day I watch folks pull up in the parking lot, get out of the car, stretch, look confused, and walk to the back door.

(The view from my desk of what may actually be a labyrinth in disguise, judging from reactions.)

How often do you go to a stranger’s house and instinctively head to the back door?

When they get closer, confused visitors see this sign–

–which only sometimes helps. Clearly, this has been a trend for quite some time.

I wonder what kind of sign we’d need to change this behavior. Maybe the design of our parking lot is inherently flawed in that visitors cannot park on the front lawn. Shoot.

Our other signs don’t work very well, either.

Grammatical errors aside, we spend a lot of time responding to visitors’ claims that there’s no sign to show them where we are. Note that there’s another sign just like this on the other side of the road, plus another when you drive east on I-20.

Perhaps reading signs became totally uncool and no one told us.

You’d be surprised how many close calls we’ve had with this one.

Granted, some might interpret that the sign implies this bathroom is for private use, which would sort of make sense that they use it. If they weren’t in a museum, and it wasn’t part of the tour. Sigh.

Suggestions?

Phil Mooney from Coca-Cola Conversations, a Coca-Cola history and archives blog, shed some light on the lawsuit and provided the advertisement in question.

(Download the full size .jpg.)

According to Phil,

In 1932, the Coca-Cola Company issued a children’s cutout based on the Uncle Remus stories. The Company had negotiated rights with the publisher, Appleton, to use the Arthur Frost illustrations on the advertising. Mrs. Harris sued for copyright infringement.

Ultimately, the courts ruled in favor of the Company. While Mrs. Harris had the rights to the stories, the illustrations belonged to the publisher.

Very cool. Thanks, Phil!

Folks around here are not happy.

(More pictures, along with the AJC article, here.)

You’d figure that with the city of Atlanta adding 20,000 citizens in the past year things like–oh I don’t know–fire stations would find their way in the budget.  Ours is the longest-running fire station in the city, established in 1910.  For continuity’s sake you figure they could’ve picked another station out of the hat.

#7 is easily the closest fire station to the Wren’s Nest.  They served us just last month when they provided us a truck for Wren’s Nest Fest.

I think they actually hired that kid.  Too bad he’s going to get laid off now.

There’s a protest planned for today at 11:30 am.  I’d expect television cameras and reporters there, so if you ever wanted to be on tv, now’s your chance.  You might could even help save our fire station, too.

If I’m not there it’s because I have a meeting until 12 and then another at 1.  Hopefully I’ll be able to wriggle out of ‘em.

In 1931 the widow of Joel Chandler Harris sued Coca-Cola for infringing upon the Brer Rabbit “copyright.”

Click the pictures for a better view.  Please pardon the cut-and-paste…the clippings came from someone’s scrapbook and weren’t easily scanned together.

Slow news day, maybe?

I wonder if Mrs. Harris was upset or short on cash.  Probably both, I suppose.

As you might expect, back in the day the success of the Brer Rabbit stories led many companies to to capitalize on the names “Uncle Remus” or “Brer Rabbit” or “Briar Patch.”

Often, the spirit of the branding was, well, not terribly respectful:

Before someone sent me this news clipping, I hadn’t heard of the Coca-Cola lawsuit.

Does anyone out there have any Brer Rabbit – Uncle Remus – Coca-Cola memorabilia?

Yesterday, I got reprimanded for saying so.

Usually I make a point of saying that Joel Chandler Harris was a bastard for several reasons:

1. Because it’s true.
2. Because his mother was shunned because of it.
3. Because the word conveys the severity of their situation.
4. Because it’s usually funny when I say it.

It wasn’t as funny yesterday when a visitor suggested that I shouldn’t say that word. And then when I tried to explain myself, things only got more and more awkward.

The visitor explained that she herself came from a single-parent home, and she didn’t think it was appropriate for me to use the word “bastard” so off-handedly. I was very polite, once again stated my case, and finally retreated by saying that I wasn’t really a tour guide, merely the director–”what do I know?!”

But at this point it was clear that I was talking waaaay too much and was engaged in something like a verbal tar baby.

Finally I simply had to concede–yes, some people might be offended, and yes because of that, perhaps I should consider not saying the word bastard.

What I wanted to do was stamp my foot and squeal in the girliest way possible: “But it’s my museum! Oooh!”

Thoughts?

(photo courtesy of the AJC. They’ve got three more in this album.)

Gosh, what is that little dog doing behind her?

Anyway, I had no idea that she has a Marriott in mind. Her property is about three and a half blocks east of us, just across from Hank Aaron’s Krispy Kreme and the Mall West End.

Here’s what I like–this idea is totally out of left field. If you walked by her property today, you’d go, “Really? A Marriott? Ohhhkay, lady.”

I really like the prospect of bringing a hotel to West End. What a great kick in the pants that’d be.

Here’s what I’m skeptical about–the location.

Granted, those old buildings are a little grimey. But they’re also neat old urban storefronts that already cater to a lot of street life. I’d hate to see them torn down. It would change the neighborhood irrevocably, and not for the better.

Put a little money into cleaning those buildings up, and they’re no different than what you’d see in more successful shopping districts like Little Five Points or East Atlanta Village.

(thanks for the picture, Amber!)

Of course, I’m not the one bringing the money to the table. Nor do I have much idea of what property is on the market, but it seems like there are more than a handful of better, nearby locations for a Marriott–

Say, perhaps, the empty parking lots around the corner where people sometimes sleep on discarded mattresses.

Or the newer gated, cookie-cutter apartment complexes that bisect the community with fences and parking lots.

Replace those with a well-executed hotel, and the neighborhood would gain economic steam and retain its historic character. Developers, especially here in Atlanta, tend to overlook the economic importance of authentic vintage flavor (ahem–old streetcars, houses, libraries, etc.).

We’ve got a great, urban neighborhood here in West End. My fear with the Marriott idea is that it will cause the neighborhood will become a victim of its own success before it even has the chance to be really successful (again).

That said, assuming she is sensitive to the historic and urban fabric of the West End neighborhood, more power to Ms. Om.  I’m excited to follow her progress, and I hope she inspires others.