The Last Member of the Family by Lois A. Sunagelpublished by Manor Books
Copyright 1979
FIRST TIME IN PAPERBACK
SHE SEARCHES FOR
THE AWFUL TRUTH!
THE AWFUL TRUTH!
ENDEAVORS TO LEARN THE AWFUL TRUTH ABOUT
THE DEATH OF HER UNCLE WALTER, FROM WHO SHE
HAS INHERITED A SUBSTANTIAL FORTUNE AND THE
FAMOUS BRADEN SAILING MUSEUM. WOULD SHE BE
NEXT ON THE LIST OF THE KILLER WHO MURDERED
HER UNCLE? SHE ALMOST GOES INSANE BEFORE SHE
DISCOVERS THE IDENTITY OF THE MURDERERS AND
OF HER ONE TRUE LOVE.
Okay, the way I see it Holly Braden is living my dream! When am I going to inherit a museum. And my museum wouldn't even have to already be famous, I would be willing to settle for a lesser known museum. Preferably a wax museum.
Of course that isn't to say, that I wouldn't be happy with some posh "Sailing Museum" and all the snottiness that implies. I'd just try my damnedest to make the whole think a little less intimidating to the everyday salt of the earth clientele. Maybe by adding a few wax sculptures or one of those amusement park pearl diving gift shops, like from Cedar Point back in the 80's, were you paid someone a few buck for a oyster, some dude in scuba gear would jump in to a tank, and you would close your eyes and wish a black pearl, or a freakishly large pearl or something to make that measly investment really pay off.
Or, if not that, at least one of those claw machines and a wing dedicated to things found in a shark.
I'll bet the things found in a shark wing would be the most popular wing. Especially with the little shit kids that won't get off my lawn.
ReplyDeleteMykal: When I was a little kid my parents took me to places like art museums, the Smithsonian, Colonial Williamsburg, Plimoth Plantation and historic homes like Jefferson's, Washington's, you name it.
ReplyDeleteBut, I remember, while staying on Virginia Beach, longing to visit this wax museum that we pasted going to an from our hotel everyday. Outside they had a life-size, at least in my memory, figure of Frankenstein's monster. I obsessed over that place. Still do. I check it out online and it is still there, but yet, I haven't gone.
My ten year old self would have loved a 'things things found in a shark' wing.
For the record I've taken my kid/s to art museums, the Smithsonian, Colonial Williamsburg, etc. Shit rolls down hill.
Spectergirl: Same here. Father was a schoolteacher - all summer off. We traveled for three months. Williamsburg, Smithsonian - same deal. Living in the Detroit area - Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Villiage. Museums were huge - The Detroit Institute of Arts I went to about a billion times growing up. Later, when a young hopeful, I would take girls there on a first date. I'd make my move in huge room that had the Diego Rivera mural of Detroit Industry.
ReplyDeleteMy son loves museums now, too. He just went to MOMA in NYC for his twentieth birthday. He comes to museums on his own, however. It’s cool that you take the young one to museums. He won’t forget it.
I loved those trips to Colonial Williamsburg and the Smithsonian and such. Although, as a kid, once the tiredness set in, I just started feeling a bit cranky, as I recall. Those things got better as I got older.
ReplyDeleteSeems odd that I don't even remember that wax museum.
Taking the kids to the Air and Space Museum a few years ago, I was so disappointed that the old-fashioned cafeteria was gone, and there's just a ginormous McDonald's, instead. I don't know why that was important to me. I felt the same when we took the kids to Disney World and EPCOT had changed so much.
Anyway, as regards the actual topic at hand ...
Inheriting a museum would totally rock! Not knowing the identity of your one true love, less so.
~Cheers!
7
7Swords:
ReplyDeleteMcDonalds is generic, bland nothing which can be found anywhere. It means absolutely nothing and brings with its similar interiors a hash of memories that mean nothing and everything at once. Whereas the museum cafeteria it replaced was specific to the place and unique, full of memories about the museum. It was about the museum. McDonalds makes a museum, or Epcote, feel like nothing special. And will eventually turn America in a suburb of happy meals and shit food.
I know, I know. Those damn kids are on my lawn again.
That pretty well sums it up.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yeah ... they've been on my lawn a lot too.
7: I loved those places too! (the "shit rolls down hill" was merely for effect.) BUT how can you NOT remember that wax museum? Would H be too little to remember? Probably.
ReplyDeleteI can remember even asking to go. I just thought it looked SO great. You would have thought, with mom's love of horror movies, that we would have stopped by at least once! I bet if it had been the Mummy outside she would have been all over it.
It appears to still be there. I wonder if the Monster is still outside. Probably not, I'm sure it was replaced with something LAME.
I don't remember the cafeteria at the Smithsonian but that is a FREAKIN' huge McDonald's. And I'm sure it is only a matter of time before Christiana Campbell's is replaced by a McDonalds/Chipotle.