Into Amish Country: From Blue Ball to Paradise

Sorry for the delay in the continuing saga of my trip into the past--I'll try to make up for it with lots of pictures! Anyway, it took me a while to recover from even writing about that wild erotica writers’ dinner on the third day of our Gettysburg visit. Whew! Even the morning after, when I stumbled into Perkins Pancake House on Route 30 just outside of town for another smutters' meeting, wiping the decadent wages of sin from my sleepy eyes, I still couldn’t quite believe I was again part of an assemblage of some of the most creatively filthy minds our fine nation has produced. Everyone else looked a bit rumpled, too, I will admit, but that’s to be expected in this crowd. With a little breakfast, I knew we’d all be ready to start writing it all down for posterity!

After three days of “vacation breakfasts,” I decided to go healthy and ordered the oatmeal at Perkins rather than pancakes for which I assume the restaurant is famous. Actually, I’m very glad I veered from the well-worn path (and generally always have been happy I did). The generous bowl that arrived was really tasty, the perfect texture, too—not runny, but not gluey either. Unless it’s somehow spoiled by too much water and rendered into gruel, restaurant oatmeal is really the best. Something about being cooked up in big vats brings out the full grainy goodness of oatmeal, and so again, fine food and conversation went hand in hand, or hand in mouth, or hoof in mouth, or something like that, but it was all good.

The best part of the meal, however, was our “dessert,” the dill-icious dill hummus Jeremy Edwards described in his celebration of dill on our Summer Spicy Sunday blog tour. In keeping with the setting, our dippers for this truly tasty spread was a bag of locally made Herr’s potato chips. I don’t think I’ve eaten a potato chip in thirty years, but this utterly fresh, crispy sample made me remember why people would enjoy them. Or maybe it was the dill hummus that elevated it all to moan-and-crunch levels of sheer physical ecstasy? In any case, I recommend you invite Jeremy to all of your breakfast parties, with a gentle hint that dill hummus would be most welcome as a hostess gift.

When the eating was done, we all gathered to say good-bye, hugging, kissing, shoving our hands in what most people would call inappropriate places for a friendly squeeze (okay, I made the last part up). There was talk of doing it again sometime soon, and I’ll repeat my vote for Italy in 2012, but another east coast gathering or something here in the Bay Area would be lots of fun, too.
The Storey family then piled into our rental car for a day of sightseeing. Our first stop was a teddy bear emporium, Boyd’s Bear Country, situated in a huge red barn in the middle of a field. My younger son thought the advertisements papered all over Gettysburg were appealing, and as he’d been patient with all the history and family stuff, we thought we’d indulge him. Jeremy Edwards and Helia Brookes agreed to accompany us there, while the rest of the erotica gang was heading to the battlefield right after breakfast. We chatted and strolled through acres of stuffed animals, which is an oddly inspiring location for erotica shop talk. Let’s hope those glossy-eyed, innocent little creatures couldn’t understand what we were saying!

Our consumer fantasies thus surfeited with miles of plush animals from forest and veldt, we drove off into the summer heat to finish up the CD-narrated tour of the battlefield, which we’d started on Friday afternoon. We’d bought the “TravelBrains” audio tour narrated by Wayne Motts, and while I haven’t listened to the others, I’d recommend this one for his lively storytelling and the illustrated accompanying guidebook.

As we were sort of anxious to get to Amish Country, we didn’t do the full tour, but stopped at some highlights such as Little Round Top and The High Water Mark. Little Round Top is of special interest to me because of Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a college professor turned soldier, who used his smarts to keep the Confederates from taking this key high ground in a very challenging situation. I’m a big fan of professors who do surprising things, like say, writing erotica. I don’t think Chamberlain went that far (although who knows?), but he was fluent in nine languages and had a pretty cool head on the battlefield, too. After the war, he wrote things like: “In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women…shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream….”
Which is exactly what I was doing as I stood on top of Little Round Top, imagining what Chamberlain was seeing and thinking on July 2, 1863 as he watched the enemy swarm up the hill whooping the Rebel yell. A line of tourists rolling past on segways and the parked cars impinged a bit on my poetic musings, but the imagination can erase as well as create, so it worked out okay.


Later, when we paused at Devil’s Den, I looked up the hill with a Confederate soldier’s eyes, appreciating how daunting that climb must have looked to him, a rather gentle hill momentarily transformed into an unassailable, deadly height.

By the time we got to the High Water Mark, the northernmost point of Confederate penetration in Union territory, the kids were thoroughly immersed in their GameBoys, but Herr Doktor and I got out of the car to tour the monuments and see the location where General Armistead was mortally wounded. There is something awe-inspiring about that vista across the field to the forest where the Confederate charge began. A peaceful stretch of farmland was transformed on just one morning into a killing field of history. Waving grass and rolling earth went from ordinary land to something so invested with importance that thousands would die just to stand on a particular square foot of it. And now it is simple dirt again, anyone can walk here at any time, except of course during major re-enactments. I was in awe, not just of the history itself, but of how we instill meaning into the world around us and the consequences of that very human act.

Okay, well, back to the present now!

We’d “done” Gettysburg, now a different part of the past beckoned, a pacifist past. So, we headed east on Route 30 into the mistily nostalgic countryside with Amish Country as our destination.


We made one quick detour off the highway to the Haines Shoe House in my father’s hometown of York, which I’d visited once on rainy autumn day when I was about four (I'm judging this from the dog we owned at the time)—and had never forgotten. When I noticed the entry in my PA Dutch Country guidebook, I just had to stop by again to see if the magic was still there.


Built in 1948, the 48-foot long shoe house was closed on Mondays for “ice cream” tours, but I snapped a few photos, including the shoe doghouse and mailbox. I have vague recollections of touring the inside (I have an image of the lady tour guide standing by a window with yellow chintz curtains, remember breathing in a musty smell and thinking I wouldn’t really want to live here).

I also remember how excited my oldest sister was by the all-you-can-eat ice cream sundae buffet in the gift shop. Oddly, though, I only vaguely remember eating any ice cream myself—I guess it wasn't especially good ice cream? Anyway, I’d recommend "the big shoe" as a whimsical tourist stop if you're in the area (and let me know if the ice cream is any better), but thank heavens for Herr Doktor’s GPS-ready phone, because the place is not easy to find!


I thought I'd add one more somewhat darker memory from my past--on the way into Amish country we crossed the Susquehanna River, a surprisingly wide-ass river with an odd, musical, yet to me rather terrifying name. Looking over at a parallel bridge brought back a recurring nightmare from childhood of being stranded in a huge expanse of water on a narrow bridge. That image still terrifies me, to be honest, and I realized it came from precisely this scene. When I was little, I would dive down into the well of the back passenger's seat, so I wouldn't have to look at this bridge! I'm less skittish now, but I still felt a vague sense of unease....

Our next stop was the Julius Sturgis pretzel factory in Lititz, home of the very first hard pretzels in the world. The original Sturgis “invented” hard pretzels when he baked a batch of soft pretzels too long! So mistakes can be fruitful, as every writer knows. The kids had fun twisting their own pretzels and sampling the various types of pretzels (we bought a bag of the rustic-style extra-crunchy ones), but by this time we were all pretty exhausted by the heat and the driving. The mood was getting a little punchy as we toyed with the suggestive place names of Amish Country. “I had to go through Blue Ball to get to Intercourse but then—on to Paradise!” Or, as Herr Doktor quipped “I’m worried that by the time I get to Intercourse, I’ll be too tired to enjoy it.”

Tired as we were, we made a requisite stop at the tiny and rather unremarkable town of Blue Ball for a photo op, passing “Pleasure Road” as well, and then on to the Hershey Farm Inn, our lodging for the next few nights.


On the way we passed a number of Amish people driving buggies. I mean for real—this was not a gimmick! Real horses, real black closed buggies with day-glo safety triangles on the back. There were rolling hills and old farmhouses and the smell of manure in the air and bearded guys harvesting hay with horses. Indeed, the Amish world is not just an idyllic fancy or a scene from Witness. The past really does live on here, proudly enduring our curious gazes from the future.

Now the Hershey Farm Inn cost about as much as the Courtyard by Marriott in Gettysburg, but it definitely had a down-home country feel to it—a close, musty smell, thin towels, plastic cups, a tiny bathroom. Basically just like the motels I used to stay in when I was growing up because my Depression childhood parents naturally chose budget accommodations. (The Holiday Inn was a real splurge for us). Amish Country is the home of the all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, with Miller’s being the acknowledged best of the buffets, but we were too cranky to drive anymore and opted for our motel’s restaurant. I’ll talk about that particular trip into the culinary past next time, but I will add we saved room for dessert and went into the charming little town of Strasburg (which is where Harrison Ford beats up the bullying “English” tourist in Witness while Viggo Mortensen looks on in his film debut) for some ice cream at the Strasburg Country Store and Creamery. I had a dish of black raspberry again, which had the same tangy intensity of flavor I’d enjoyed in Gettsyburg. They really know how to do raspberry ice cream in that part of the world! Butter brickle is another local specialty—it tastes like an ice cream version of butterscotch hard candy. I also eyed the toasted coconut fudge, but since I’d been eating dessert morning, noon and night every day, I decided not to indulge. This was a big mistake, it turned out, for I never had another chance and the idea of a piece of golden, toasted coconut fudge became more and more appealing with each passing moment.

I’m over it now, but next time, I will definitely take that leap to see if my fantasy is matched by reality.

Stay tuned next time for…a gallery of T-shirts from Intercourse and confessions from the most sensually self-indulgent day of the trip (oh, those Amish!)

Gettysburg, Day 3: Blood and Orgies

Ha, it’s hard to see the word “blood” or "orgy" these days without thinking of those ever-lucrative sexy vampire stories, but you won’t find much of that here at Sex, Food and Writing. Except maybe tomorrow. But for today my post title refers to the bonds of blood. As in my family reunion. As in a big huge Catholic one. As in enough bonds there to make for one hell of a bondage story… but I'll try to be clean-minded, as my Magical History Tour continues with a trip into my family past the afternoon of August 9. (And the photo above is just a teaser about the orgy, which really did happen--in a rhetorical sense.)


My oldest sister had attended several of these annual events which had been revived about five years ago, and she knew the drill. First we had to stop at the big old Giant supermarket on Route 30 to buy our lunch supplies—a veggie tray and sandwiches for us, takeout Chinese for the boys. Then we stopped at my cousin’s place along the way to see her amazingly whimsical house and garden. Her husband is a jack-of-all-trades artist and blacksmith and we got to see his old-fashioned forge and some of the beautifully crafted hinges he was making for a construction project, among other highlights. I mention this because these creative touches and magical spaces (especially the “bottle tree,” an iron rack decorated with colored bottles and glittering old CD’s) reminded me that we can add delight and art to our lives in all sorts of simple, but effective ways. I’m wondering if some of the beautiful places I visited on this vacation didn’t inspire my very dedicated bout of fall cleaning this year—my first step in bringing more serenity and space into my life! So far, the unburdening of stuff has been very liberating for body and mind, although I have a lot more to do.

But I digress.

Our next stop was the family reunion itself at the hall of a picturesque church situated on a winding country road. Corn fields all around, the sense of rural community—it was definitely a trip into the past. Family reunions of yore were usually at parks in the summer or church halls in the winter. I could go on and on about my extended family, but I’ll try to keep this brief. First, the food culture. Although aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins and all greeted each other warmly as we arrived, lunch was clearly serious business and all the families sat down with their own brood and shoveled down the chow with grim determination. Most of my relatives had brought homemade things—the Smith family traditional roasted chicken or baked beans in a crockpot or some such hot lunch dish. We sat in our corner eating the fontina and roasted veggie sandwiches, and I recalled that my cousin who arranged the event said we could probably share in the other relatives’ food since we were the official “traveled the farthest” attendees. But really, that would have involved circulating from family to family with an empty plate and a hungry smile, so if you’re ever invited to the Smith family reunion, I definitely recommend bringing your own lunch.

When we’d finished our savories, people started wandering over to the potluck dessert table and the visiting began. I was also interested to see about half of the offerings were store-bought and the other half—including my pecan cookies—were homemade. To my amusement and delight, the homemade items disappeared rapidly, while the packaged goods languished untouched. Clearly my extended family knows how to indulge in sweets! A real highlight was two big dishes of rice pudding baked from my grandmother’s recipe by my cousin, the organizer of the reunion. He’s taken this as his duty to preserve the iconic family dish, which I think is very cool. Grandma Annie’s rice pudding was served at every Sunday dinner, not as dessert but more as the sweet part of the Pennsylvania Dutch sweets and sours menu. I usually make a Danish-style rice pudding recipe with gelatin, rum and whipped cream, but this version is nostalgia itself—cooked rice mixed with eggs, milk, fake vanilla (if you want to do it like Grandma) and a bit of salt. Pour it in an enameled dish, dust with cinnamon and bake in the oven with the roast chicken. The result is a soft, mildly sweet rice layer with the thinnest band of yellow custard on top. It’s very good and very satisfying in a down-home way, and I’m thinking I have to make it myself sometime, for the sake of tradition. I think it would be great as a breakfast dish!

Anyway, as I said, I could go on and on with the family stories and maybe later I will tell you how my sense of myself as an outsider was clearly formed to some degree by my relationship with my extended family (who all still lived in the same town, while my mother couldn’t wait to get out!). Suffice to say now, I have a new heroine in terms of aging gracefully, my Aunt Betty who will be ninety in a few weeks. Not only is my aunt active, smiling and beautiful (you’d confuse her for 70), her mind is amazingly lively. She told me she’s starting to write her memoirs and I encouraged her strongly because I would love to read them!

The other interesting thing about the reunion was that everyone told me I looked just like my mother. This is actually a huge compliment, so it’s not that I minded, although of course we were all sad that she couldn’t be with us. Interesting though, that on a trip that was all about ghosts, I was suddenly a ghost myself.

Kind of uncanny. But as you know, such poignant, strange moments are very nourishing for my creative mind.

So, the afternoon went by quickly for the chatting, benevolently haunting adults and very slowly for my kids (who distracted themselves building Legos with some distant cousins), but finally we had to make our exit as we had an exciting event to attend in the evening. On the way back to our hotel, my sister drove us past my grandmother’s house at 113 Oxford Avenue in McSherrystown. Here’s a picture, but the house looks nothing like my grandmother’s place as I knew it beyond the same address and the same general arrangement of porch and windows. The red shingle siding is gone, as is the trellis on the front porch, the porch swing where I spent hours daydreaming and making up my earliest stories, the Victory garden in the back. I can only imagine that the inside with its steep staircase and dusty old-fashioned rooms was gutted. In this case, the past was not waiting unchanged for my fond return!

Okay, enough of the past.


Now we get to the good part: the grand gala erotic writers’ dinner at La Cucina in Hanover! First, a special thanks to local eroticist extraordinaire, Craig Sorensen, for choosing such a yummy restaurant and making the arrangements. Once Herr Doktor and I walked in and sat down at the long table, I felt as if the restaurant were our personal party joint—not that we read aloud from our most recent BDSM-themed stories or anything, but we talked freely as the BYOB wine flowed (thanks to Jeremy Edwards, Helia Brookes and Marina St. Clare for bringing some delicious fruits of the vine). In fact, this was another reunion with Jeremy, Helia Brookes, Heidi Champa and her husband, Emerald and Craig, DeDe and Cyn Sorensen (who took the photo at the top of this post), all of whom I’d met before. However, it was my first in the flesh encounter with Erobintica and Marina St. Clare, who’d driven down from die-hard Yankee country especially for this event.

Now, as I’m sure most readers of this blog are aware, getting to know someone in cyberspace is very different from the traditional way you had to do it before technology transformed human interactions forever. In the old days, you approached a new friend from the outside in, but in blogland it’s really from the inside out. I first “met” Erobintica and Marina through the progressive blog dinner, and I’d had the pleasure of reading their stories, blog posts and emails discussing the writing life. So I “knew” them in one sense and yet I’d be seeing them for the first time.

Not that I was nervous, just I was reminded what a novel situation this was in the course of human history. I mean, sure, you could befriend someone through letters in the old days, but this was different.

And yet, it’s also interesting that it took about one second to process the face and smile, link it with the internet relationship, and suddenly it’s as if I’d had coffee with Marina and Erobintica many times, as if we’d discussed the eroticist’s experiences in person instead of through emails. Yep, it was pretty much instantaneous—cool how the mind works. Also I have to say I’ve never liked a person in cyberspace and not slipped right into warm friendship when I’ve met them in person. It could be that erotica writers are just very cool people—which is certainly true! But there are so many cautionary tales of Internet persona not being what they seem--the most obvious being men who pose as women to lure unsuspecting males into cybersex. Yet for me, the cyber-café has always been a fairly trustworthy way to get to know someone.

So, having connected and reconciled the real people with the Internet personae quite effortlessly, we all proceeded to feast and make plans to bring enlightenment to the world through smart stories about sex. A kind of benevolent global warming campaign, if you will. In the meantime we dined heartily on focaccia, salad, and various pasta dishes. Jeremy recommended the gnocchi from his past lunch with Craig, and being a big fan, I ordered that dish and thoroughly enjoyed it. But dessert was the best part for me. Erobintica had brought down her famous homemade chocolate cake with tangy chocolate frosting (I hear the secret is using some of the extra buttermilk in the frosting), so we all got to sample a moist, chocolately slice along with another tin of my pecan cookies I’d kept away from my devouring relatives.

Yes, we were all delightfully sated on pasta and sweets, but as erotica writers, we were more than ready for another round of fun, so we headed back to Jeremy and Helia’s hotel room for an orgy—of conversation, you dirty-minded readers, please! I will admit the topic turned to hotel sex and wild adventures we’d had within the oddly liberating confines of a rented room. But the physical manifestation of our verbal pleasures, as we lounged about on the beds drinking wine from plastic cups, was not especially provocative, unless you count Emerald’s boots!


These are pretty wild, don’t you think? A hotel sex story in the making all by themselves!

To conclude this delightful evening, Herr Doktor came to collect me a little after 11 pm (he was checking on our boys who’d hardly noticed we were gone since they were given unlimited Game Boy time) and I bid my writer friends a temporary adieu as we’d be breakfasting together the next morning. I can’t vouch for what happened after I left, but it may show up, transformed into fiction of course, in some future story? I know I’ll be watching the erotic anthos for group sex romps on hotel beds involving plastic cups of red wine and a few pieces of chocolate cake….

I’ll conclude by saying it was real delight to gather with so many cool, creative people who share an open-minded sensibility about eroticism. I hope we can do it again sometime—I think we all felt the same way. Perhaps in Italy with Isabel Kerr in 2012?

Next time—are the Amish really clueless or just plain perverted?

Gettysburg, Day 3: A Dark, Mysterious Corridor Through Time

Okay, so I lied. I just realized I’m not going to get to the Erotica Writers Bacchanalia in this post. The event looms large in my memory of my East Coast Magical History Tour, but I’d forgotten about some of the other trips into the past that preceded this celebration of my present, and since I took so many pictures, well, half the fun in life is getting there, right? And while frolicking with a happy group of writers who know no shame is my eventual dream destination in my travelblogue, the rest of my Sunday was a necessary purifying preparation for the piece de resistance.

And yes, it involved another trip or two into the past (said with sonorous, creepy voice).

Day 3 of the Battle of Gettysburg brought the brief “high water mark” of the Confederacy as General Armistead’s brigade momentarily broke through the Union lines, only to be quickly overwhelmed. Thus it is fitting that Sunday, August 9 was a whirlwind of highlights of my trip—the actual family reunion that brought me east and the erotica writers’ dinner. But first we had a whole morning to fill with adventure, and I’m serious about my adventures, so I assembled the troops early ,and we headed back to our “regular” joint, The Avenue. Unfortunately for my younger son, who requested a repeat revisit for his bowl of Special K, Sundays are very busy days at The Avenue. We’d walked right in before, but now a line stretched out onto the sidewalk, so we convinced him to blow off the lengthy wait and walk back towards the square to try out a French-style eatery that had caught my eye on our wanderings: Café St-Amand. The comparative lack of patronage in the place put me on guard, although the air-conditioning immediately raised my spirits. But in spite of its quiet atmosphere, the food was actually excellent. I had a mushroom-tomato-cheese omelet, which was much silkier, not to say more French, than The Avenue’s tougher country version, along with a café au lait slushie—just right for a hot summer morning. Herr Doktor tried one of the crepes, which got good reviews, and the boys chose French toast, possibly the best or second best in Gettysburg (wink). Although apparently, the locals weren’t aware of this!

After breakfast, I marched my men back down Steinwehr Avenue, where the line at the Avenue still snaked out the door, and on down to the American Civil War Museum for my own personal reunion with an important part of my childhood. Known back then as the “Civil War Wax Museum,” this trip back in time was always one of the highlights of a visit to the area. I’d guess my parents didn’t let me come every time, but certainly twice a year or as often as my begging could convince them. And, for those of you at all interested in the makings of an erotica writer’s mind, this museum probably did more to shape and feed my fantasies than any other place. When we’d last visited in 1996, I was happy to find a cousin (once-removed) working at the ticket booth—always fun, and as I said, I have about a million relatives in these parts.

However, this time I discovered the museum was much transformed in the intervening 13 years. First of all, they’d changed the name. Secondly, a group of living history reenactors was camped outside the entrance, making the once grand white columns seem more of a backdrop than the main event. Once inside, what I remembered as a mysteriously dark entrance with a wax figure displayed as a teaser and the ticket taker waiting at a special raised desk in the shadows, had now become a brightly lit gift shop. In fact, you had to make an effort to find the entrance to the museum off to the left through a turnstile. And the person at the cash register seemed surprised we wanted to buy tickets rather than just shop.

Yes, things had changed a lot in forty years. Wax museums had clearly lost their cache and I started feeling relieved this timeless landmark was still open for business at all. Had they perhaps changed around the museum itself with an eye to modern tastes as well? I was anxious to buy my ticket and find out.

It bears repeating that the entrance to the museum now looked more like a random doorway back to the restrooms. Very plain and unassuming. Still, determined to revisit the past, my past, we valiantly bought our tickets and pushed through the turnstile and the black curtains at the entrance.

All was dark. Holding my breath, I took a blind few steps and turned the corner. And, yes, suddenly I was back in time--in the Old South. It was just as I’d left it ten, twenty, thirty, forty years before, frozen. Wax slaves picked cotton, the master and his lady watching indolently, a civilization doomed to destruction. The next window gave me a glimpse of the antebellum North—industrious workers in a home sweatshop, all white. Next came the scene that as a child always shocked and impressed me with the violence of the time in some ineffable way: South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks attacking Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for his provocative speech against slavery and its supporters. (Sumner was injured so badly, it took three years to recover his health enough to return to the Senate; South Carolinians sent Brooks dozens of new canes, as he’d broken his from the final blow to his victim’s body).

This window boasted one of the museum’s eeriest effects—lying on the floor under Brooks’ upraised cane, Sumner’s chest rises and falls as if he’s breathing under great stress (see photo above). It’s hypnotic—my younger son stared in fascination—perhaps because the wax figures do seem so dead, yet this one lives, although poised on the brink of a brutal, bloody beating. Just like America itself.



My family soon wandered on far ahead, but I lingered—first at the mesmerizing tableau for the Underground Railroad where you press a button to illuminate the runaways hiding in the basement of a “station master’s” cabin. Then there was Rose Greenhow, the famous Confederate lady spy, who’d always intrigued me with her wily feminine intrepidness. What was she whispering to the man at the door? And how could she do all that in a hoop skirt? And why were there no Union lady spies? (There were, they just didn't make it into the museum with Rose and Belle Boyd, the southern femmes fatales).

I felt these questions forty years ago, but now the same thoughts came to me more vividly, in words.



Of course, there was a window dedicated to Jennie Wade, and at this point, the fog of nostalgia cleared just enough for me to notice this figure was pretty darn ugly, not at all like the photograph of Gettyburg’s only civilian casualty. The real Jennie is quite pretty, but her doppelganger is balding and homely to a distressing degree. I supposed I’d been aware of this from the start, but now I viscerally understood why the wax museum had fallen into disfavor in our age of dazzling special effects. There was something undeniably crude and unglamorous about it. Yet this was the glamour and magic of my childhood, the means to transport me back into history. In a way I associate all trips to the past with this place—wandering through dark, mysterious corridors with moments of startling illumination. Darkness and light, me as voyeur. In fact, it’s been a long-standing fantasy of mine to have my own dark ride or wax museum secreted away in my house, the entrance to another world hidden behind a modest doorway. Kind of like Aladdin’s secret garden with the trees bearing rubies and emeralds instead of fruit.

I wandered on down the path, each scene triggering new memories. The crudeness of the male figures seemed somehow less sad, I decided. I snapped many pictures (choosing just a few for your viewing pleasure). For some reason I was drawn to take a close up of this man: Confederate General John Bell Hood. Indeed in the photos, he comes out relatively well, and I find myself studying him as if he were a real person. In putting together this blog, I checked out Hood’s Wikipedia page and discovered this observation from the ever-perceptive contemporary diarist Mary Chestnut:


“When Hood came with his sad Quixote face, the face of an old Crusader, who believed in his cause, his cross, and his crown, we were not prepared for such a man as a beau-ideal of the wild Texans. He is tall, thin, and shy; has blue eyes and light hair; a tawny beard, and a vast amount of it, covering the lower part of his face, the whole appearance that of awkward strength. Some one said that his great reserve of manner he carried only into the society of ladies. Major [Charles S.] Venable added that he had often heard of the light of battle shining in a man's eyes. He had seen it once — when he carried to Hood orders from Lee, and found in the hottest of the fight that the man was transfigured. The fierce light of Hood's eyes I can never forget.”

What struck me about this passage is that this same mysterious quality of veiled passion is captured in the wax face—perhaps the reason I was drawn to it? Here and throughout this vacation, it seemed to me I was seeing everything with new eyes, clearer eyes, that led me to unearth fascinating, if seemingly obscure discoveries, that made a tacky old museum into a bewitching adventure. The main difference of course, was that I had not yet started writing seriously in 1997. Now I was seeing this museum, and everything, as a writer.

I liked my new vision.



I was also more aware of the aspects of the Civil War the curators chose to bring to “life,” those they chose to skip over, thus shaping a huge, unruly story. But of course, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln had to be included, always a chilling scene, the moment just before. I also noticed that the paper on which the scene descriptions were written was now wrinkled—probably untouched in forty-some years (although the wax figures were scrupulously dusted at least).

The last part of the museum was still the same, too—the grand diorama. Back in the day, you used to have to wait, possibly through one whole performance, because it was so crowded. But this time the theatre was almost deserted with only my family of four and another man and his son in attendance. We had our choice of seating on the benches arranged in a semicircle around a sunken stage of wax figures. I realized that at one time this must have been state-of-the-art entertainment, but now, well—even so, it held up pretty well in my opinion. (I’m biased, though, as you might guess).


This grand finale is a kind of sound and light show describing highlights of the Battle of Gettysburg. The parts that stayed in my memory remain—feisty union General Daniel Sickles getting his leg amputated (the bloody saw was a haunting image), the mayhem of Pickett’s Charge that seemed to bring with it the smell of gunpowder. And then above it all Abraham Lincoln himself rising above the fray on an elevated platform to deliver the Gettysburg Address. The figure of Lincoln clearly got the most love from the engineers. His head moves, he gestures, holding a rolled up copy of his speech (which reminded me somehow of a half-eaten churro or a hot dog bun). But the words of the Address never fail to move, even after hearing/reading them a few times over the past two days. This part always gets me:

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here…”

Because of course, Lincoln is very, very wrong about that. If you're looking for an example of deathless prose, this tops the list.

Anyhow, when we stumbled back out into the fluorescent-bright twenty-first century, I was immediately hankering to buy one of the accordion postcard collections of highlights of the museum as a momento. I’d kept one in my treasure box as a child, but it must have been discarded long ago. Yet, a thorough search yielded no such postcards of the wax figures, and when I asked at the desk, they told me they had none for sale. Only T-shirts and passport books for smashed pennies and Confederate-flag print bathing suits. It’s as if the gift shop were trying to forget the secret drama unfolding eternally in the depths.

Like the battle itself, part of my Gettysburg has passed forever into history. But at least for a while, the heart of it lingers behind an unassuming door, waiting for the right traveler to seek its magic.

Next time: Hey, I really will blog about the Erotica Writers' Dinner. Honest!

Gettysburg, Day 2: An Historic (and Slightly Haunted) Dinner

So, believe it or not, there’s more to tell about Day 2 at Gettysburg. An action-packed day indeed, and perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the second day was long for the soldiers in the Civil War battle, too!

Following an afternoon playing my own great-grandmother before a nineteenth-century camera, evening brought yet another opportunity for time travel—we met the lovely Emerald and her partner in adventure, Rick Write, for dinner at the historic Farnsworth House. My oldest sister was also joining us as she was already in town for the family reunion the next day. It was indeed a thrill to see Emerald, and in a way it’s as if we’d just seen each other a month rather than almost a year before (at In the Flesh’s Oral Sex Night). Talk about tricks of time!

Because our reservation was at seven, we had some leisure to walk around the town, which was feeling very much like home to me now. When I first arrived, my mind was buzzing with hazy memories from my many visits, but it seemed as if they were coming into focus. I could really appreciate the place in a new way, and I wonder if my writer’s way of taking in the world had something to do with it? In any case, although I don’t live close anymore, Gettysburg felt more like “mine” than ever before in my life. Not quite sure why, but it was a good feeling.

Our first stop was a gallery of a Civil War-themed artist (whose name I forget, but it’s right there near the square). Apparently he was known for his historical accuracy in portraying battle scenes, although my fancy was taken with a very romantic and surely anachronistic tableau of a southern belle kissing her officer lover among the magnolias, while the rest of the couples at the ball looked on approvingly. Voyeurism, exhibitionism, a suggestive group-sex dynamic, and all in extravagant costume (how do you do it in the garden in a hoop skirt?)—there was much fodder for an erotic story, but then my eyes are always open to new material.

After a stop at a funky cafe for some iced tea, it was time to head over to the inn. I’m a sucker for historic dining experiences, although I know the food at such places is seldom tops in quality. It’s usually decent, however, and of course, a meal is more than just food. Add in some pewter, heavy silverware, candlelight, waitresses in long dresses, caps and frilly aprons, some hovering ghosts from the past (and of course charming contemporary company) and you’ve got a dining experience to transport you to another time.

There’s a lot of history (and plenty of ghosts) at the Farnsworth House. The oldest part of the house was built in 1810, and the brick structure where we dined was added in 1833. Original walls, floors and rafters remain intact—they don’t build ‘em like they used to, that’s for sure! A family named Sweney lived in the house during the battle, but some Confederate sharpshooters also took temporary residence in the summer of 1863. It’s believed one of them shot the bullet that killed teenager Jennie Wade, the only civilian to die in the battle. The south side of the house, facing the battlefield, is riddled with over 100 bullet holes from those bloody July days. The current owners began to restore it to its 1863 appearance in the early 1970s. They named it after Union Brigadier General Elon John Farnsworth who led an ill-fated charge against the right flank of Longstreet’s forces after Pickett’s Charge failed. I don’t think of the battle lasting beyond that debacle, because it doesn’t in the telling, but the Farnsworth Inn commemorates later seldom-heard casualties of the battle.

After dinner, the plan was to corral the party to attend a presentation of ghost stories in the inn’s basement “Mourning Theatre.” I definitely have an appetite for ghost stories and ghost tours, although, like a hot fudge and brownie ice cream sundae, I prefer them as occasional indulgences. When we’d visited with our older son in 1996 (the time we took the first picture), Herr Doktor and I went on one of the two lantern ghost tours offered at that time. Now you can find a ghost tour advertised on (almost) literally every block. It would be hard to choose, except with some local’s recommendation—or perhaps they’re all similar? While I’m comparing ghost tours to food--I seem to compare everything to food, don’t I?--I’d like to add that I like mine with a mildly creepy flavor rather than the grisly end of the spice rack. Actually, what I really enjoy about ghost stories is how they make me think about the way the human mind works. Urban legends are the same in this regard. Ghost stories have such a broad appeal because they tap into our deepest anxieties and even hopes, so that picking apart such a story is a way of digging deeper into the human psyche. Besides which, ghosts stories are usually good, suspenseful yarns in themselves and I’m always looking to steal good tricks!

I have a pretty bad memory for jokes and stories, but a few of the terrible tales we heard on that earlier ghost tour have stayed with me for over ten years. At the risk of going on and on, I’d like to share them here and see what you think.


The first ghostly visitation occurred in one of the historic houses along the main street in the town. The innocent resident bought some figures of famous officers who served at the battle and set them up on her mantel as decoration. The next morning she came down to find them rearranged. No problem if she had children who’d played with them, but—she lived alone! Confused, she rearranged the figures in her preferred order and went about her business. The next morning--to her surprise and growing horror--they were changed around yet again in exactly the same way. After doing a bit of research, the hapless Gettysburg homeowner discovered that her chosen way to display the figures was historically inaccurate and some unseen hand was fixing them to reflect the way things really happened during the battle. I believe the denouement was that she decided to leave things as they were and the ghost kept his peace.

Creepy, huh? I can just see that earnest, slightly annoyed ghost strategist putting things right just round about midnight.

The next story is a bit more grisly. Some years ago two men got into an elevator in a Gettysburg office building and pressed the button for the third floor. The elevator began to move, but not up. Instead it was going down. Again not a big deal except—there was no basement in this building! Exchanging worried glances, the men waited in silence as the elevator slowly descended and the door slid open. Their jaws dropped. Because suddenly they were gazing out at a horrible scene: wounded men groaning, severed limbs piled high beside the bloody surgical table, and a horrible stink of rotting flesh filling the air. The man with more wherewithal stabbed the “lobby” button and the door closed on the frightful tableau. When it opened again, they were back in the present day. Later they learned that the building was constructed on the same site that was used as a battle hospital by the Confederates.

Enough to send a shiver down anyone’s spine.

To tell the truth, this grim tale occasionally pops into my head when I’m riding an elevator. I’m not sure I have the perverse appeal all worked out in my own mind, but there is definitely something creepy about elevators (anxiety about technology is a common theme in urban legends and supernatural tales). You get into this little box, wait, the door opens and you walk out into a different place as if by magic.

But what if you walked out into a different time as well?

It’s surely a question for us all to ponder, but all of these ghost stories are making me hungry. So let’s get back to dinner. After a waiting a bit in the bustling entryway of the Farnsworth House, our party of seven was escorted to our long table in what was probably the original dining room of the house. The cups were pewter, nicely cool and heavy in the hand. Real candles flickered all around. Perusing the nineteenth-century menu was a great deal of the fun—in keeping with the time meat dishes were prevalent. Emerald and Rick stayed true to the times by ordering the house specialty, game pie, and steak, respectively, both of which were reportedly tasty. I had scallops—simply braised in butter and quite nice--and Herr Doktor tried for the chicken pot pie, but it was sold out and he got so-so crab-meat stuffed salmon instead. As is usual in such places (this is true of Williamsburg taverns as well), the side dishes are the most intriguing parts of the menu. I’d give highest marks to the custardy cornmeal spoon bread that was served in little cups, although the Sally Lunn bread was disappointingly dry. The green beans boiled in ham broth were as nostalgically limp and salty as my grandmother used to make, but the pumpkin fritters were delectably spiced with cinnamon and wouldn’t have been out of place with a side of ice cream. I left most of the beans and polished off my son’s fritters quite happily (cause he thought they were weird--I'm not that bad of a mother!).

But of course, conversation was the best condiment. Rick is a history buff and had lots of interesting stories to tell about the Civil War period, a topic very much on my mind. We also got to talking about food preferences, and Emerald and Rick shared their very intriguing idea for a restaurant catering to couples. Their menu would have three sections. On the left would be a list of dishes aimed at the traditional female preferences—salads, seafood, light meals. On the right would be the traditional meaty, manly fare. However, the middle panel would have the house specialties, which blended the two in a new marriage of flavors.

I thought this sounded really cool.

Having experienced this man food/woman food split on dates (although Herr Doktor and I have pretty similar likes and dislikes after 24 years together), I thought such a melding of gendered cuisines would certainly provoke interesting date-night discussion, and possibly encourage a satisfying meeting of the appetites in preparation for another sort of intimate encounter later. Food as foreplay indeed!

Although tempted by the shoofly pie on the dessert menu, I was full enough to pass this time, figuring there’d be plenty of opportunity to indulge in Amish Country (and boy was there ever…). The kids ordered ice cream, which arrived scooped high in pewter bowls, and the adults chatted on into the evening, thereby missing the ghost story presentation at the inn altogether. This was probably good since I was really the only one who was genuinely enthusiastic. My kids thought they might get scared and I suspect Emerald was just being polite when she agreed to come along. So, everyone was happy and unhaunted when we walked out into the night, dodging knots of tourists strolling by with their lantern-toting ghost tour guides.

We said a not-so-sad goodbye to Emerald, for we’d be seeing her again the next evening for the Erotica Writer’s Bacchanalia, which was sure to be the scandal of Hanover for decades to come (and hopefully inspire annual reenactments).

Stay tuned next time to discover what happens when a bunch of dirty story writers get together for a big bash!

Gettysburg, Day 2: Becoming My Own Ancestor

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the things on my Gettysburg vacation wish list was to drag my family to one of those photography studios where they’d dress us up in Civil War costume and take a shadowy, grim-faced photograph to add to my existing collection of two faux historical family pictures (I didn’t show you the one of me and my older son at age two which we took the year after Herr Doktor as a Union sergeant with his infant son in a white dress). I figured we’d stop in at the studio recommended by the lady who owned the historical clothing shop and get our photo done within an hour or perhaps just make an appointment if her brother was booked up—then move on to the wax museum before dinner.


And so I led my guys up the stairs to Rob Gibson’s studio at 65 Steinwehr Avenue with only the most modest expectations, even though the brochure for the place offered this teaser for my history-loving fantasies: “Visit R.J. Gibson’s Studio, a magical place where Time Travel is possible…and The Past comes Alive.” Little did I know this promise would indeed be kept and we were about to enjoy one of the most memorable parts of our trip.

It was getting close to two in the afternoon when we trooped into the studio, a rustic looking series of rooms with tintype-style photos covering the walls. Ron and his wife Dee were just finishing up lunch after a busy morning, but they immediately welcomed us and offered to explain their services: we could get an authentic wet-plate tintype for about $80; an image done in glass, another 19th century process, for the same amount (except they break easily); or a digital photo only, which costs about $30. The price might seem high, but it’s is a bit misleading, because you get much more than just a photo at Rob’s studio. Each of the explanations (except the digital photo) involved a lesson in the process and the equipment. For example, for the wet-plate Rob uses an actual camera from the Civil War era and you can watch the plate being developed. He also showed us lots of samples that all looked spookily authentic. In fact, Rob told us that he’d seen some of his work being sold on e-bay as original 19th-century photographs and he had to change his materials to prevent further false claims.


We immediately decided on the tintype, although we’d settled for digital with our earlier family photos. We also got a tour of the wall gallery, which included a photograph of Ken Burns (above), Ted Turner and many of the actors from the wonderful movie Gettysburg. It turns out Rob played an aide to cavalry General Buford in the film and he had a photo album of fascinating candids from the filming. There were also framed magazine articles about his work and at one point Rob gestured to a frame and said, “They’ve even written about me in Japan, but I can’t read it.” “I might be able to,” I said, and he pulled down the article for me, clearly impressed.

In the meantime, we began discussing the costumes we all wanted to wear. We decided the guys would all go into the military—Herr Doktor would be a Union major, my older son as a private in the cavalry, and my little guy as a “powder monkey,” one of the 9-10 year-old boys who served on battleships because they were small enough to stand upright in the lower decks. While the men changed into their clothes with Rob’s help, I tried to make sense of the article from the Japanese photography magazine. I could see why the people who ran the local Japanese restaurants claimed they couldn’t translate it for him. Most of the article was extremely technical and probably just a repetition of the processes Rob had explained to them anyway. But I did manage to decode a few sentences, such as “Rob Gibson’s work has a mysterious depth that is impossible to capture with modern techniques. It is fascinating and you can’t tell it apart from a 19th-century photograph.”

The first family member to emerge transformed was my older son who strode out in his Union uniform including boots and a long sword. His jacket was the same one Rob wore in Gettysburg which somehow made me feel closer to the battle itself in a strange way. My son immediately assumed a rather belligerent look (he was in all the plays in school) and I felt a twinge, as if the realities of that time—having to send my son off to war—were suddenly a little too near. The next soldier was the powder monkey, his pale skin looking very white against the dark blue wool. He carried a real knife in the belt slung around his waist and Rob had warned him not to play with it because it could “cut his hand off.” Cautious by nature, my son readily complied with the warning and still looked a bit frightened to be wearing the sheathed weapon. Last but not least came Major Herr Doktor, a brilliant red sash against his blue coat, sword in hand. Officers in the Union Army seldom dressed up as flashy as the Confederates, but for this commemorative occasion, an exception would be made.

The pace of the experience was rather leisurely and I had plenty of time to snap pictures of the boys saluting and looking fierce and martial. Rob then explained that during the Civil War, the common salute involved turning the palm outwards to face the salutee in the old British-style, so I snapped a few more “authentic” salutes. Rob also demonstrated a full cavalry sword salute, which he’d mastered when he was doing reenacting events. The wealth of information Rob and Dee provided was just marvelous for a history buff like me—and the boys seemed to be equally fascinated.

In the meantime, Dee and I conferred on my costume. Apparently many tourists want to wear ballgowns for the photos, a very Farbie thing to do, so she was impressed when I immediately requested a plain day dress. She suggested I just wear a padded petticoat instead of a grand hoop because of my smaller size, and suggested the proper brooch and accessories. Interestingly enough, by the time all the guys were dressed, Dee had to take their little dog outside, so it was Rob who went into the dressing room with me to do the honors! And sure, a historical reenactor initiating a willing woman into the intricacies of period dress would make a good erotic story, too, except I didn’t remove one bit of clothing for him except my wristwatch. You can’t tell (hopefully), but the petticoat and dress were secured by ties in the back, so underneath my fancy costume I’m still wearing jeans, walking shoes and my own shirt, the collar of which is peeping out over the top of the dress. Add on a snood, a hat, and a velvet belt and I’d become an irreproachable 19th century matron.


Dressed and ready, we all walked somewhat awkwardly in our boots and hoops to the sky-lit studio itself. Rob coated the tin plate with some kind of chemical and placed it in the camera. Then he arranged us as a group, first in a way that required the boys to have neck rests hidden behind them, then in the pose you see above where they leaned against the column. He then explained that the plate would be exposed for thirteen seconds and we could blink and breath but not otherwise move or we’d look fuzzy. Men should look serious, while a woman could smile slightly. So I curved my lips a bit and tried to stand tall and straight as if I were a well-bred lady in a corset rather than the slouch that I am!

Rob gave the signal and we stood stock still for one of the longest 13-second stretches of my life. I could feel my chest rise and fall with each breath, feel each blink like an unnecessary indulgence, sense my guys around me slowing their own breathing and counting silently. One, two, three…thirteen. Later we learned that the “ghost pictures” hanging in the gallery, with a hazy figure hovering behind a seated solid person, exploited this long exposure by having the “ghost” leave mid-way through the process!


After the official photo, Rob’s assistant snapped some casual pictures of us in our finery and then we got to watch the developing process as Rob dipped the plate in the chemical bath. Before our eyes the clouds on the plate dispersed and our image appeared as if we were stepping out of the mists of the past.


I have to say that although the whole experience was totally wonderful, my reaction to the photograph itself is hard to describe. I treasure it, yet it makes me feel uneasy. My younger son’s and my blue eyes show up white in the picture, making us look wolfish. The abundance of Union uniforms give the image a shadowy quality as if it really were an old, faded photograph. And, as the Japanese article mentioned, the process captured our faces with a depth and clarity that made them seem unfamiliar. My husband’s face looks careworn, as if he were a seasoned veteran of a terrible war. My older son’s cockiness reminds me of the ways boyish bravado has been exploited by armies throughout the centuries. And my little one looks so precociously serious, as the prematurely worldly boy soldiers must have been at the time. Myself I don’t really recognize—I look starched and proper, but haunted. There is a definite creepy quality to the picture, as if we’d been transformed into at our own great-grandparents. Of course, I like creepy. Creepy, slightly disturbing images and feelings inspire most of my stories in fact! And I have to say this beats your usual touristy “old tyme” photo where I’d be dressed in a polyester bar girl’s outfit and my guys would be gun-slinging cowboys, all bathed in Photoshop sepia tones.
Just for the record, I say I look like my own great-grandmother, but here is an actual photo of my great-grandmother Hufnagel, taken on her wedding day, October 16, 1888, in nearby Hanover, Pennsylvania. I don’t look much like her at all, do I? Except for the hand resting on my husband's shoulder....

In any case, I highly recommend a trip to the past via Rob Gibson’s Gettysburg Studio. For a little over a hundred dollars (including a nice frame) we all learned so much about the 19th century in mind and body. And as the brochure promises, we now possess an heirloom souvenir from this vacation to pass on down—and up--the generations. Looking over his website, I see that Rob describes himself as a man who’s found his passion in 19th century photography. I totally felt that passion and dedication in everything he did, and it definitely translated into a magical experience for his clients as well.

So here’s to the magic of passion in all our creative endeavors!

Join me next time for a jewel bedecked dinner, 19th century style.

Gettysburg, Day 2: I Like Ike

Saturday, August 8. Of course, the only real reason to get out of bed is breakfast. And since we’d left The Avenue with unfulfilled yearnings the morning before (not for the fried pickles, but now I’m regretting not sampling those with my pancakes), the family mutually agreed to return to the same diner that Saturday morning, although much earlier than the day before.

The place very busy with locals and sightseers reading battlefield guides, but we got seated after a short wait. The day before Herr Doktor had been coveting one of the homemade banana muffins listed on the menu, but I talked him into the sweet potato pancakes instead. I felt I owed him, so we did one of our usual split breakfasts where he ordered eggs, I got a muffin and we shared, washed down with my vacation treat of a bottomless cup of decaf.

What can I say? The Pennsylvania Dutch know how to do carbs in a mighty tasty manner. Most banana muffins are made with puree and walnuts, like a banana bread, but this beauty was a light, moist muffin base with chunks of real banana blended in. The banana chunks were a bit discolored, but the fresh flavor more than compensated. And the omelet was nostalgically dry, just like mom used to make (no runny French style eggs for my family, you cooked those things into submission and I was happy to see the cook at The Avenue was on board!)

Fortified by a good country breakfast, we headed back to the visitor’s center, which was totally mobbed on a Saturday morning (including some people dressed in Amish clothes which we couldn’t quite believe were real). Fortunately we were bound for a far less popular destination: the farm that Dwight Eisenhower and Mamie called their only private home. While hoards of tourists were waiting for the battlefield tour, the Eisenhower shuttle bus held a mere forty or so fans of the Fifties. While waiting, I read through the National Park Service’s brochure on the general and his life. He was actually a very handsome young man—did you know that? My image of Ike is as an old bald guy, but really he was quite a dashing young soldier.

But enough about historical figures on their own merits—what about Ike and me? Well, the thing that freaked me out about the Eisenhower Farm was that he was living there in retirement for many of the years I’d have been visiting Gettysburg (pronounced “Get-us-burg” by the locals) and I never had a clue. Of course, my family and extended family were all Democrats, back in the day when working people voted for that party based on their economic policies. FDR was a god and picture of JFK walking beside the Pope had pride of place in my grandmother’s kitchen (a pairing that was no doubt comforting for her, disturbing for the less religious, I'm sure). So maybe Ike wasn’t mentioned because he was a Republican. But a great many important things happened just down the road. Ike received the news about Francis Gary Powers being shot down over Russia at the farm. He recuperated from his heart attack there. And he often went into Gettysburg surrounded by his Secret Service Agents.

But I never knew this until just recently. Weird, huh?


To get to the Eisenhower estate, you need to board a shuttle bus at the visitor’s center. The drive led right through the field that witnessed Pickett’s Charge and it was impossible not to glance over at the Confederate starting point, then back to the wall where the Union riflemen lay in wait, and wonder how the hell a man could start off on that mile-long hike, pretty as the stroll would be today, knowing what awaited once he got into range of those rifles. (I know this act of courage or madness was made by thousands of Civil War soldiers on both sides, but Pickett’s Charge seems especially iconic and let's face it, the South may have lost the war, but they are still leaders in the myth-making of that time.) Incidentally, I learned on my trip that my brother-in-law’s great-great grandfather was a 19 year-old blacksmith from near Appomattox, VA, who served as a soldier in Armistead’s brigade. Yes, he was one of the few to reach the “high water mark of the Confederacy” and more amazing still, one of the fewer to make it back alive—proof being that he didn’t have any kids before he left home. So in a way I was related to someone who made that incredible journey and survived.

I mean it is all fantasy, pure concept in way, but still, it made me feel closer to history.

But back to another war. We arrived at the Eisenhower Farm and were welcomed by a peppy college student guide who told us a cheeky story about Mamie and Ike’s first meeting. Mamie was the belle of the town in Texas where her family wintered and somehow Ike was giving her a tour of his camp and the barracks. He warned her not to look around too much because the young men might be in a state of undress. Sassy Mamie stopped, peered to the left and right, and declared there was nothing she saw that she didn’t like.

This month’s Cosmo claims men like women who challenge them, so I guess it was true even then.

Ike immediately fell in love, but he could not get a date with Miss Doud because she was booked up for weeks. So he came up with his own strategy to win that war by dropping by to visit with her family regularly to show what a great guy he was even as she was squired around town by others. He always managed to stay late enough to say goodnight to Mamie after her date had dropped her off. His persistence charmed her and They were married within the year.


He was really cute in his engagement picture, too. I don’t know why I keep mentioning this, it was just a surprise. I could even see using Ike for a celebrity erotica story one day. Surprising is sexy sometimes.

Anyway, enough about sex, this was definitely a vacation of museums, and one of the things that occurred to me is that a museum is like a story. The curators and historians make all kinds of choices about what to display, how to describe lives in brochures, how to give the tours, and how to shape the information in all sorts of ways. So seeing a museum is like reading a text—you can just go with it or challenge it or let it take you on to new and perhaps unintended insights.

The Eisenhower years are known as a bland and boring phase of American history, or at least a big thick layer of white pie crust masking a seething stew of racial and sexual discontent and revolution. But Ike and Mamie's relatively modest house—preserved as it was when they lived there--was actually a pretty interesting glimpse into the Fifties.


The first room you enter after the entry way is formal living room where the tour group received one last mini-lecture from a guide. He pointed out the many art pieces, carpets and furniture that the Eisenhowers received as gifts from heads of state in thanks for his services as general. There was also the “pouf,” a round velvet Victorian-era conversation seat Mamie had enjoyed at the White House. She wanted one for the house, but Ike thought it was too “pouffy.” Mamie finagled one from her wealthy mother as a gift. Indeed the entire house was split into his and hers quarters. Pink and pouffy for Mamie. Manly wood paneling and rustic décor for Ike. Very gender divided, just like the Fifties.


The most lived in part of the house was the TV room—again, very Fifties. The Eisenhowers had one of the earliest remote control TV’s and the couple usually ate dinner there on TV tables. “I Love Lucy” and “Gunsmoke” were mutual favorites. Mamie liked “As the World Turns.”

There are also two bedrooms: one manly one where Ike napped and slept when he was recovering from his heart attack. It definitely has a spare, military feel. The master bedroom was Mamie’s domain, all pink and fancy. Mamie believed that once a woman reached the age of 50 she was entitled to stay in bed until noon. So I have two years and three months to go! Apparently, she did all her lady-of-the-house duties in the morning propped up on pillows. The curators placed some of the items that she would have had on the night table, all homey things like candy and Kleenex in an old-fashioned box.

I was starting to feel as if I were in my grandmother’s house. The hit of familiarity was incredibly strong—I could almost smell it. This was middle class America in the Fifties, a certain essence of the time, which most Americans shared, a communal set of “values” that hasn’t really survived (although I’d argue the conformity was not all good). Herr Doktor described the same feeling more eloquently later. He mentioned that he was used to touring historic homes from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, where the way of life was so different from ours, it was almost impossible to imagine. But the Eisenhower house was like a bridge—both historic and intimate, approachable as lived experience, at least for our generation. It was indeed like visiting Grandma. We got to wondering what the Obama house museum would be like with its quaint flat-screen TV and Michelle’s exercise equipment, back when female arms had to be sculpted and buff.


Since we’re winding up our Spicy Sunday blog tour with a special finale this week, I thought it appropriate to include a photo of the Eisenhower kitchen. Very homey, isn’t it? Most of the meals were made by the wife of Eisenhower’s African-American valet who followed him to Gettysburg from the army, but Ike himself liked to grill Angus steaks made from the cattle on the farm and do Amish style breakfasts with punhaus (minced pork product) and eggs.


I had to include this close up of the spices on hand. Just like we were all talking about, eh, Neve? Salt, pepper, chicken bouillon, oregano, some garlic salt—nothing too fresh or challenging, that’s for sure!

After a quick stop at the Secret Service’s monitoring center (a preview of Washington, D.C.’s Spy Museum), we headed to one of the barns for a docent’s talk on the D-Day soldier. I thought the boys might be interested, but my older son was having a teenage moment and sulkily sat alone on one of the benches at the back. This probably saved him from being recruited for a beach landing, because the chatty docent chose young men from the audience to wear all the gear—but he wisely shied away when we joked that my son was part of our family but didn’t want to be near us. Definitely best to avoid the rebels in the group.


Moving from the Fifties to the Forties, we got to handle the gear and clothing a soldier who landed on a Normandy beach that fateful June day might have to deal with. GI issue scratchy wool pants, smoother underwear. Bullet belts and gas masks (most discarded on the beach). Badly designed life belts. Rations of various sorts—the foul-tasting protein bars made by Hershey where apparently thrown at the heads of soliders who tried to barter them as chocolate bars to French farmers. I’d have to say the docent was a little too fond of center stage and he definitely liked to “involve” the audience in sometimes challenging ways, but it was the perfect lesson for the setting. Still, we slipped out of the talk early to catch the 12 o’clock bus back to the visitor’s center, and then back to our hotel for a picnic lunch of cottage cheese and fruit from the local supermarket. We had to get our strength for the next adventure of the day, truly one of the high water marks of the vacation.

That's when we not only hopped into a time machine back to 1863, we got to be our own great-great grandparents. So put on your hoop skirt or your Union cavalry private’s jacket and get ready for the ride. I’ll see you in pictures tomorrow!