Not long ago, I found myself alone in a big city with three hours of free time.  I checked out of my hotel, stashed my luggage and walked a mile to the city’s fabulous art museum.  I arrived at 9:55 a.m.  It was raining, and a group of people were gathered at the top of the massive staircase, huddled in the shadow of the huge stone columns that flanked the oversized bronze doors of the massive structure that looks exactly as an art museum is supposed to look.

I stood there under my tiny “fits in my suitcase” umbrella, waiting for the doors to open when that most dreaded event for all who visit museums of all sorts---be they museums of art, science or natural, military, medical or human history, and include in this list other public attractions of learning such as zoos, concert halls and lecture halls and the like. 

Put yourself in that line waiting for the doors to open and think what could happen that would sink like a heavy donut of dread into the pit of your stomach and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.  

Yes, two bright yellow icons of terror rolled up into the circle drive of the art museum in the drizzling rain and disgorged their cargos of energetic fifth-graders.

Until that moment, I had been planning my tour of this massive museum according to my own tastes:  I wanted to start with the Flemish masters---those incredible vibrant still-lifes painted three hundred years ago, those portraits of long-dead people who still practically breathe from the canvasses.  And then I would look at some Impressionist paintings, followed with some modern American artists and then I would look at the furniture and furnishings that I so admire from the early 20^th Century and then I would be out of time and would have to sprint back to the hotel to collect my luggage from the bell captain and head for the airport, my eyes and mind sated with the treasures of the ages. Ahhhh!

But the buses full of noisy fifth graders shepherded by their earnest and capable teachers and aides rolled up just as the doors opened and they bowled noisily into a special door marked for large groups as I followed the other art-lovers into the gigantic vaulted lobby to buy my ticket and begin my magical mystery tour and all bets were off.

Don’t get me wrong---I love kids, and especially fifth-graders, who are at the tail-end of the path of innocence and at the front-end of path of intellectual wonder.  It’s just that I don’t want to share art museums with them.

There is, however, a serviceable Plan B that I have developed over my years of visiting museums.

I don’t want to put myself in the same category of greatness as the 1939 inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Wee Willie Keeler, one of the best hitters of all times, but my Plan B for Visiting Museums and Attractions is based on his famous methodology for maintaining a high batting average:  “I keep my eyes clear and I hit ‘em where they ain’t.”

Simply stated:  Go where the fifth-graders aren’t.

I did that.  I started with Ancient Egypt and then went to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, ducking around a corner just in time to avoid the raging horde of 10-year-olds as I ran into a large display of the work of Cecily Brown.  My mind and eye wasn’t quite ready for that, and fortunately, the kids ran me out of there after five minutes, and I finally found myself alone with the Flemish Masters.  Ahhhh! 

I never did see the other galleries I had intended to view, but I discovered some wonderful things---I was especially taken with some amazing little carvings on the signet rings of ancient Greece—tiny, perfect, graceful carvings that will remain in my mind’s eye forever. 

Good things often come in small packages. Tiny carvings on ancient Greek signet rings. Fifth graders.  Wee Willie Keeler.   I’m grateful for them all.
                                  Jim Whitehouse

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