Let’s go to that really cool museum,” my grandson begged his mom.
She agreed and they spent a couple of hours walking the grounds and exploring the displays and hands-on activities inside the Museum of Natural Resource on Highway 7 to Smackover. She posted pictures on Facebook of her three young children touching, experimenting in the tinker room and just listening to the stories of the Oil Boom.
Asked what she liked about the museum, my four-year-old granddaughter said, “The elevator. But it is kind of scary they go back to dinosaur time.” Stepping inside the elevator does initiate a tale of going back to the events that some propose formed the pockets of oil.
Motion-activated lectures and a life-sized mannequin of an oil field worker startled the little one, but she repeated a message she has heard many times from her mother, “he is just pretend, that guy not gonna hurt me!”
They all had fun in the Tinker room where children can build marble slides while they learn. The toddler did not understand anything about the oil or the marble slides, but she sure thought the equipment would work for making “sammiches” and pizza, her mother said.
The family came on one of the three weekends when the city holds “Showdown at Sunset.” They arrived in time to visit with the Jessie and Woody characters from “Toy Story.” Last year’s kindergartner looked at the pair and declared himself too old to pose for pictures with such people. The two-year-old wanted to wave “hi” from a distance. She definitely did not want to be close enough for a picture. Her face declares her distress. After her mother held her for a quick picture and walked back to the stands, the baby stood up, smiled and waved at Jessie and Woody on the other side of the crowd.
During the pre-show music, we pointed out the cowboys slipping up to the courthouse to prepare for the show. The children and crowd began settling down to watch the short play.
They listened closely as the characters introduced themselves, gestured at each other and made humorous asides that perked up the telling of the events leading to the shoot-out. The gunshot inside the courthouse when Bob Mullins is killed grabbed everyone’s attention.
All three sat up straight and watched as the interaction progressed to shouts, threats and then guns. We sat close enough that the little ones could see the fake blood on the actor’s hand as he lay on the ground.
As the smoke cleared and the actors and audience dispersed, all the children agreed to have their picture made with Sheriff Tucker, but the wide eyes and sidelong looks betrayed the four-year-old’s uncertainty of being so close to a man with a gun.
Our night’s entertainment did not end until they had had at least a half an hour or so of jumping in the bouncy house, and checking out the face painting and balloon creations as the adults listened to music on the stage set up on Jefferson Street.
They had fun playing. We had fun watching them swishing balloon swords with kids they met on the street. Sheer delight came over the four-year-old’s face as she jumped on the slide of the bouncy house. It took the better part of half an hour, but the toddler finally agreed to get a balloon creature from the clown. She managed because she kept encouraging herself by muttering, “Just a clown. Not going to hurt me.”
We topped it off with ice cream and a story time before they bunked down for the night. Nothing like a family visit to fill up my schedule.
(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times. Email her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com)