Jade collections, The Exploratorium and inexact memories.

 

Many years ago I and a girl friend visited the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. This is a beautiful rotunda like building. After the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was anxious to show the world that it had risen from the ashes. So in 1910, business and civic leaders gathered to discuss making San Francisco the site of the century’s first great world’s fair — a grand exposition that would honor the completion of the Panama Canal. In just two hours, they raised $4 million — and beat out competitors New Orleans and Washington, D.C., to host the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. 
 
The building has had many uses over the years but the year I visited it it was called The Exploratium. It was designed by Frank Friedman Oppenheimer (August 14, 1912 – February 3, 1985) who was a particle physicist,(his big brother was Robert Oppenheimer), cattle rancher, professor of physics at the University of Colorado and the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco in 1969. In fact the place was used to death because when I visited it close to when it opened all the exhibits were .. um..well used.

Back to the Exploratorium: the building was outfitted with science and physics experiments that appealed to many ages but mostly teenagers. There was one exhibit where you could stand on one side of the room and whisper to someone standing hundreds of feet away. The acoustics were so good you could clearly hear the whispered conversation. The place employed young people explaining and demonstrating the experiments to viewers. It was so much fun. If I were rich, I would put a similar Exploratorium in one of the empty downtown buildings, hire local kids to run it and charge a modest admission. I am pretty sure it would be a fun busy place.

Another time I think about 1970 or so, my family was visiting. My Mom, my mother-in-law, my sisters and there may have been others, went to Golden Gate Park. The de Young museum was displaying the private jade collection of an American politician or diplomat (his name I cannot remember, Help!) which was mammoth, impressive and beautiful. 

 There was also a show for one of the Wyeth's, Andrew maybe. We gawked at those paintings. We walked and trudged a lot and gawked some more at the paintings. My absolute favorite was one of a pond in summer. It was a very large painting so that if you stood close enough you lost the edges of the painting and gazed down into that pond. It was clear, shallow not more than three feet deep. You could see minnows and shadows of them flitting through the waters. You could plainly see the pond bottom littered with some smooth rounded stones. I don't know if I am remembering this but I could swear there were water skippers on the top of the water, maybe even dragon flies. It was peaceful. I wanted a print of that picture so badly, I would have paid genuine money if the museum had been offering the print for sale but I didn't think about those kinds of things until years later. I am not even sure it was a Wyeth, dang it. I have never found it on the vast Internet.

I had a flashback to another pond located in the central Idaho meadow lands. Dad had decided that we would all go camping in the 56 Pontiac station wagon (white with a red stripe). So off we went. No tent. We all slept in the station wagon; Mom and Dad, me, Richard, Phillip, Ellen, Gale and Carla. Jim was not born yet. It felt miserably cold that night and we got up the next morning for breakfast. I and my brothers went off into the woods to gather wood. Mom took pictures on the Brownie wind up camera. The picture of a huge armful of wood I was staggering back to camp with turned out to be a few feeble sticks of kindling. Mom went to rinse out the battered aluminum coffee pot in the stream. We heard a scream! Mom had dropped the percolator innards into the freezing cold glacier fresh stream. She was not going to freeze her lady bits to retrieve the insides of the coffee pot so she made cowboy coffee that morning. The young trout eagerly nosed the coffee pot inner structures and laughed their trouty selves silly at the humans peculiar camping habits. 
 
Now at this point, my siblings will point out that:

1. it was not the 56 Pontiac station wagon,
   
2. one or more of the little sisters had not been born yet and
   
3. some smart ass will point out that we were camped near Cascade just for clarity you understand.
   
4. And MAYBE someone will actually remember the name of the famous American jade collector. C'mon cudgel your brains!! cuz mine are compromised and NOTHING I put in the search engine popped up anything useful....sigh...