Magical, God Dammit!
I begrudgingly opened my eyes this morning. I decided to make the minimal effort of
flipping on the radio before enough daylight could validate my theory that snow
was going to prevent me from leaving my driveway in a timely enough fashion to
get to work. I faded in and out of
awareness of the dj banter and pop songs I find none too entertaining. Then the news came on to which I sharpened
my ears for a concluding weather report. I was greeted with the announcement
that after 82 years, the Higgins Armory Museum is closing its doors.
That woke me up.
I left college at the end of my sophomore year, starting (as
my grandmother used to say) my different path of life. I spent the first months of that summer
working at Big Y, a job I hated pretty much entirely. Then, as if reaching a hand through the want
ads to pull me out of my Gen X sense of futility, I saw an opening for tour
guides at this unique Worcester museum.
I got the job on my 20th birthday.
It was… it was… I really can’t sum it up in a simple word,
or even a hundred. I got to work in a
castle, which for this Robin Hood, Shakespeare, England lover was absolute
heaven. The pay was piss poor. When I started I probably worked 25 hours a
week and got $5/hour to gallery sit and $7/hour for teaching. But… on the other hand, I learned more about
history than I ever could from an overpriced college education. Not to mention how to work (or not work) with
people.
Hm. All my memories
are already stored in the trunk of the past.
And I can visit them any time I wish, and often do when I have drinks
with my former co-workers. Seriously,
any combination of us can get together and it is like time stood still and we are
sitting at Eddy’s Pub, resting our feet from a marathon day of tours and
demonstrations or having a Ding Dong the Witch is Dead farewell party. Watching movies at 3am in the auditorium to
keep ourselves awake overknight by noticing Kevin Costner’s dismal accent, the
moss theme that appears throughout Excalibur, or wondering if it still really
looks like that. Outreaches where we
talk about the Braveheart puppet show or the sport of sock her? Or the graybeard
with barely any teeth and bits of food in his whiskers. Pulling a miracle out of the New Testament by
feeding seventy cub scouts with forty bread bowls. Drinking a two liter of Diet Coke a day to
get through twelve hours of programs, then trying to sleep under my desk but
kept awake by suspicious footsteps heard overhead in the locked and alarmed
Great Hall. Gallery sitting and dreaming
up blocking for a play or scenes for that still unfinished novel. Cutting a birthday cake with a sword then
washing it in a sink while wearing a costume.
Cutting string for helmets and burning the ends over a candle whilst
laughing and gossiping with the ed staff… my friends, my beloved friends who
are not in that trunk of the past, but who are feeling that same weird mix of
nostalgia and grief today.
At the end of the day, it is just a building. A building I might visit once a year… and
even then, the Higgins of my era (which some of us argue was THE golden era)…
has dissipated into the ether. I have
all my memories with me – all the laughs and the stresses that bonded us. But it is still… sad. The historian in me laments the inability to
learn both of the knights and the strange steel manufacturer who built that
museum on a windy hill. That I won’t be
able to take Hannah and Lily there when they grow older. But… there is also a bittersweet poetry to
the fact that just like castles in England that seemed so strong and enduring,
this too must succumb to time and the changes of society.
But Higgins will always be a part of me. And will always make me smile. In that way, it endures.
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