The Most Important Exhibit?
Doug Thompson
Copyright (c) 1998, 1999

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For Michael Rodriguez, he said (After looking at the Museum Web page):
 " . . . Inside!  Take us inside, man.  (What a cool-looking place. You got
the best job in the world, homeboy.)"
Michael
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The Rocky Ford Museum is a place of wonder, it is full of the beauty
and the pathos of life.  The grand things that draw attention and the
small everyday things that match life.  There are treasures worth
thousands of dollars and copies of old newspaper articles worth a
few cents.  Balance scales and cigar clippers, a unique firetruck and
mass produced bottles.  Which among these is "The Most Important
Exhibit"?

Today an old man and two of his grand kids came to the museum.
I'll call him Mr. Sanchez (not his real name).  The kids, a boy 11-12,
a girl 9-10, were bored and displayed that cutting attitude that only
the know-it-all of youth can achieve.  They looked at the exhibits
without seeing the beauty or the pathos, they were there because
Mr. Sanchez brought them and they would be polite, but no more
than sort'a polite.  Meanwhile Mr. Sanchez talked to the Curator
about how he had come to donate something to the Museum.  About
the migrant labor camp (Alta Vista) that was built by the sugar
factory on the southern edge of Rocky Ford.  About the people who
had lived there and still lived in Rocky Ford, all too often the story
ended with "but he or she is dead now".

We proceeded through the collection, the main floor first, then down
to the basement, the children growing more bored by the minute, past the
display from the Holy Sugar Factory, the old man looking at the beet knives
and making the arm motion necessary to hook the beet then the swing to chop
off the top.  But, all of the time Mr. Sanchez was looking for his donation
to the Museum and the kids were trying to hurry him along.  They barely paid
attention to the wonders before them, touching a typewriter that was old
before their parents were born, fingering the book of American Braille
without interest.

When they came to the display case that holds a ball and chain used as Otero
County's first jail the young girl asked "What are these Grandpaw". She was
pointing at five or six smooth blocks of wood with blades in them, a set of
carpenter's planes, the old man's gift to the Museum.  "I donated those he
said,
my wife told me to throw them away."  The children were hooked, among the
thousands of dollars worth of objects, gifts from the rich and powerful of
the small City of Rocky Ford, things that the white people had put in the
Museum was something their grandfather had given.

So I again posit my beginning question, "The Most Important Exhibit"?