As April rolls into May, teachers and students alike experience a little foretaste of purgatory. The school year is nearly over, but finals haven’t started yet. Classes are covering their last topics of the school year, and the students glaze out the windows daydreaming about the vacation that is only weeks away. As a little tide- you- over till summer getaway, I took my eight graders on a daytrip to a couple of local stops. Both have been well covered here but I thought I’d offer fresh insights. The class is a group from a private school in a neighboring town, and as such, represents a new audience for the establishments in question. Our first stop was the Brook Hill, American Freedom Museum. As always, the exhibits are so much more than one expects to find at a local private school. It chronicles the history of the American military through all the nation’s conflicts. There are rare weapons, flags, even vehicles on display throughout the facility. The hall of presidents contains documents and signatures of every American executive. Anyone planning a visit to our area, hosting out of town guests, or compiling a list of summer activities should definitely keep the museum in mind.
Our second event for the day was a place old and dear to my heart, the Historical Aviation Memorial Museum. But first we sat down for lunch at the Skyline Café adjacent to the museum. We had planned this lunch ahead of time and the young men in particular were eagerly awaiting the huge ten inch hamburgers the restaurant serves. With as much food as our crew ordered, all that cooking took a little while, but it proved well worth the wait.
The Aviation Museum is filled with all manner of artifacts, charts, maps, flags, models and uniforms from all periods and nationalities of aviation history. Outside the building are a number of aircraft on display spanning the period from the Korean War through the skirmishes of the nineteen eighties. I love visiting this place and so does my young son and I have every intention of returning. The one caution I would offer to the group that visits is to be sure that your younger more active members lower their voices and restrain their energy, as some of the older docents (much like my grandfather actually), can be a touch prickly. Hey their vets so I’ll extend that deference. Otherwise this is always a fun stop and I will continue to bring my students until they bar the door.
Another 5:30 am meeting time and departure! The seventh such since I started teaching at Kings Academy. I never sleep well the night before. I lay awake or barely asleep thinking of all the things I have to do before leaving. And my work has increased exponentially since my son came. In spite of this fact I still love these trips. I do my best to mix in new stops and experiences every year. This is both for me and returning students.
Our next stop of the day was the USS Texas. Its massive guns are always a favorite for the students. For me it’s the mundane elements that are most intriguing. The mess halls, on board post office and comm. centers all remind me that there were actual lives being led in those spaces, and the men aboard were trying to maintain any possible sense of normalcy. Most impressive for me is the battleship’s history. Turns out the Texas turns one hundred this year! Its keel was first laid in 1911, and it served through two World Wars and the Korean War.
As a closing side note the Houston traffic was of course a bear as we headed to the south west. And since the GPS wanted to send us down “shorter” routs we decided to have dinner while traffic died down. We stumbled into an authentic Mexican restaurant called Taqueria Arandas. I immediately sensed that we had chosen wisely when the television featured a Mexican sketch comedy show, and it seemed most of the kitchen staff was only fluent in Spanish. It was a terrific meal! If the rest of the trip goes as well as that dinner I’ll be one happy man by the end of it.