Day at the museum: Eccentric items from the Smithsonian

Jerry Seinfeld's puffy shirt

I hope this was the turkey/mashed potatoes/stuffing TV dinner.

Buzz Aldren's space suit (looks like he's a contestant on "To Tell The Truth")

Tito Puente's timbales (they're good and Puente)

Uranus looks lovely tonight

Not the most sophisticated exhibit but my personal favorite.

Washington D.C.'s Smithsonian Institution exists because a generous British scientist named James Smithson (1765-1829) wanted to increase knowledge among all mankind. He left his fortune to the United States government even though he never visited the country. We call this Eccentric with a capital E, and would like to tip our cocked hat to him.

A few parting shots from Washington, DC

Above: From the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum

Also from the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum: one of their more sophisticated exhibits.

On display at the National Postal Museum: I love museums devoted to mundane things.

At the National Archives: Rose Mary Woods' tape recorder.

At the National Archives: a letter a seventh-grader named Andy Smith from South Carolina wrote to the government, asking for Federal Disaster Relief funds because his mother says his room is a disaster area.

At the National Archives: Bill Clinton's high school marching band uniform.

At the National Archives: a video documentary about President George Bush Senior.

Eccentric Smithsonian: Seinfeld's puffy shirt

On the same day we saw this exhibit at the Smithsonian...

...we saw this on TV later on in our hotel room! You can't make stuff like that up!

The Smithsonian Institution (or "that Smith Brothers Institute" as Barney Fife would say) is full of national treasures, not the least of which is the puffy shirt worn by Jerry Seinfeld in episode 66 of his TV series. In it, as you recall, Jerry winds up wearing an outlandish pirate shirt on the Today Show with Bryant Gumble because Kramer's girlfriend, the designer of the shirt, is a bit of a low-talker, and he was just being polite. It sits enshrined behind Plexiglas, next to Fred Rogers' red sweater. Upon its induction, Seinfeld commented that surely this was the most embarrassing moment in the museum's history. The same day we viewed the shirt in all its Smithsonian splendor, we retired to our hotel suite, The Virginian, for a little r&r and some color TV viewing. Seinfeld was on (not hard to miss, as it is on about 100 times a day) and spookily, the puffy shirt episode was being broadcast. Coincidence? I think not. We are not alone.

Cool stuff from the National Archives: When Elvis met Nixon

America is an eccentric place, full of eccentric people. Need proof? Check out this factoid from George Washington University's website: "Of all the requests made each year to the National Archives for reproductions of photographs and documents, one item has been requested more than any other. That item, more requested than the Bill of Rights or even the Constitution of the United States, is the photograph of Elvis Presley and Richard M. Nixon shaking hands on the occasion of Presley's visit to the White House." On December 21, 1970, Elvis visited Nixon at the White House. The two had never met before. On a flight, Elvis wrote Nixon a rambling six-page letter (on American Airlines stationery) requesting a visit with the President and suggesting that he be made a "Federal Agent-at-Large" in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (ironic, considering Elvis's later problems with pills). He presented this letter in person, unannounced, to Nixon's bewildered staff who arranged for a quick meeting with an even more bewildered Nixon. At the meeting, Elvis told Nixon what an admirer of his he was and mentioned that he had been studying communist brainwashing and the drug culture for 10 years. He also condemned the Beatles, and presented Nixon with a gift: a Colt 45 pistol that Presley brought with him to the Oval Office. Nixon presented Elvis with a phony-baloney badge of some sort that the White House staff had hurriedly put together which brought Elvis to tears. A White House photographer recorded the event and Elvis, being Elvis, left the building. And for once in his life, Richard Nixon was not the weirdest fellow in the room. To order a copy of the Elvis-Nixon photo of your very own from the National Archives, click here: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/nixon-met-elvis/assets/doc_citations_transcript.html.

Cool stuff from the National Archives: Abraham Zapruder's movie camera

The National Archives: the nation's closet

Mr. Zapruder's Bell & Howell

Washington is a pretty staid place. Important buildings, important people, important, important, important. But there's plenty of cool stuff for an eccentric roadside traveler to gawk at. Take the National Archives, for instance. This is where America, a place that seemingly never throws anything out, keeps its stuff. We took a tour in 2007 and it was full of delights. Among the standouts were Abraham Zapruder's movie camera. He's the fellow that got the only moving pictures of President Kennedy being killed in Dallas, the most significant amateur recording of a news event in history. These home movies were so incendiary that the public was not allowed to view the footage in its entirety until the late 1970s when Congress held hearings about the assassination. And there's his camera, a perfectly normal looking Bell & Howell Model 414PD, the kind Mr. Wolf next door when I was a kid and countless other dads and camera buffs would have used in 1963. What I'd like to know is, what else was on that roll of film? Abe Junior's little league game? Little Janie Zapruder's ballet recital? Aunt Lottie's birthday party? And does a big road sign get in the way at the ultimate moment of all of those events, too, like with JFK? Poor Mr. Zapruder probably never made another home movie after that terrible day. Here's some more about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Zapruder