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| Dan the tour guide |
I walked into the museum at Hopkinsville to see the quilt show. The first
question I was asked was where are you from? All the way from Georgia! I paid my $2 museum
admission fee and was told that the quilts were displayed throughout the museum
mixed in with all the historical artifacts. So I headed that way, but the little
man at the desk asked me if I wanted a guided tour. I told him I was just going
to walk around, but he was already getting up and heading my way, I said sure,
a guided tour would be great. As we entered, I said I was just here to see the
quilts and he paused a minute, said he said he gave a guided tour of the history
of the area because he knew it so well, but he didn't know anything about
quilts. So we took the tour together, I learned about the history of Hopkinsville and he learned
about quilts.
He told me about the Trail of Tears that came through here
and I told him that Chief Whitepath came from the area where I am from. I showed
him the different quilt patterns. Soon he was asking the name of the quilts and
commenting on the patterns. He recognized the Wedding Ring. He assumed that all
the quilts were hand stitched, but I showed him the machine stitching on some
and explained that they were still works of art and someone had to cut and sew
all of those pieces into a pattern, the final machine quilting was a new
addition to the craft.
He said the museum started out as a post office years ago
and showed me the peepholes overhead the postal inspectors would use to monitor
the mail sorting, making sure no one opened mail. The high ceilings made it a great
place for a quilt show, as we walked along I read off the names of the quilts
and he would ask, "Who made that one? Oh I know her!"
He showed me his picture on a wall featuring local veterans,
he told of his time spent in Korea .
I told him about my folks being in the service, my dad in Korea also.
When we rounded one corner, he said, "I like that one! What is it
called?" The Lone Star, always a striking pattern. This one was made in
1871. So I snapped his picture in front of it. Somehow I had forgotten to take
any pictures the whole tour, sometimes it is just fun to look and learn.
Dan the museum guide said he is 80 and has Parkinsons, but
is fine as long as he has something to hold onto, and he is a volunteer museum
guide for the fun of it, he likes to meet people and can be found at the museum
daily 2:30 - 5. Thanks Dan for the tour!
