The Whatnot of TJ

I'm too tired to do it justice (and friday's fannish 50 will probably be moved to tuesday). I hit a new museum here in town, Beyond the Battle out of the Adams County Historical Society. It was a nice idea and a small museum (with two enthusiastic older lady docents) It starts with local dinosaur findings, then a wee bit (very wee) on the local natives and then the making of Pennsylvania (and it's skirmishes with Maryland)

There was some on a famous local abolitionist and naturally quite a bit about the battle of Gettysburg and afterward (including Mag Palm who I learned about last year, the woman who beat up the slave catchers who came for her even though she was a freeborn woman)

It also went into the Spanish flu pandemic, WWI and WII I guess the Eisenhowers retired here.

But the really cool thing was 'Caught in the crossfires' It was set up like the sitting area of a typical house in the mid 1800s in disarray. You're sat in there and it's five minutes of what it was like in Gettysburg in those three days. The 'family' is in the basement and you can hear their voices as cannons and guns fire on the house with lights appearing in the 'bulletholes' in the walls, screams of animals and people and the floor shakes. They put effort into it (Not recommended for people with PTSD related to battle)


From there I went to the Shriver House museum and cracked the key as to when to get to downtown historic Gettysburg. Get there by 11 and you can find plenty of on street parking (during the week at least) The house was down up in period pieces and tells the story of the Shrivers. The husband was set off to war (thinking it wouldn't last long) while Hettie takes care of their two daughters and tries to keep the business going, a saloon in the basement and a two lane bowling alley (Shriver had sold off his farm and had a fair bit of money when he built this place.

It doesn't have a happy ending. I got the diary of the neighbor girl plus the one about the Shrivers (and a book on battlefield hospitals) These Shrivers are distantly related to the famous ones, like Arnie's wife.

Since the festivities didn't start until late today I went to the movie theater here on campus and saw Fantastic Four. I loved it with one major exception. I'm biased. I can't remember if FF was my first comic or if it was Justice League but I know Johnny Storm was my first comic book crush so there's that. I adored the mid-Century American feel (with the futuristic tech). What I liked, they reduced the origin story to a news clip since most of us know it and that Sue didn't get sidelined because she was pregnant.

What did annoy me: Reed, the world's smartest man, saying something stupid in a press conference that he could have not said a word about and for what? 10 minutes of drama? We could have done that a different way. Other than that, really liked it

At the con, I got to see my friends and I've already bought a few things. One thing they can do better (and I'll put that in my response if they do a survey) was tell us WHO are doing the panel talks. I went to one and it was Calamity Dawn and her cocktails which I didn't mind. I like her but I didn't even know it WAS her. Drank malort. don't rec.

I did notice that a lot of the usual actors aren't here in the vending room. Hmm, I need to look at them more carefully tomorrow. It's holiday shopping time.

I went dancing and I went to the magic lantern 'castel' presentation. I need to work magic lanterns into a story somewhere.


If I'm slow in answering you, sorry but man I didn't even get back til nearly midnight. I'm getting old for this place.