Echos

Margaret was here from Kississimmee, Florida, visiting for a few days. We enjoyed having her with us and on one of our many car trips with Carol took us into Charleston, where we visited the Museum there. The Museum was unbelievably raucous: Was it my new ear? I was awed at first, when we went in -- it was so large -- the first thing we looked at was the large round tank with fish swimming whirling around and around -- was the tank moving? Was the water whirling around? Carol said it was only the fish moving in a circle in the large tank. That and echos -- what was echoing? Something besides voices. Was it water running? Maybe workmen at the tanks or at other places there? A slight dizziness came over me. We went up an escalator, looked at more fish, some like the bass, the pickerel, (trout?) we have in the river at home, only much larger. And then a turtle with his underside toward the glass while he swam, snakes, a huge rat snake, an octopus which squiggled down from the rocks where he was wedged, with a leg or two and a portion of his head and eyes showig. I especially enjoyed watching him and his legs and his over-abundant head and popping eyes moving here and there. I don't remember having seen an octopus before, although I may have. I am sure my sister Mabel or brother Leo brought me to Boston to the museum, and in later years, I worked in a building next to a new museum at the edge of Boston Harbor. Did the octopus not interest me then? Was he not there? Or hidden behind rocks? Anyway, to get back to S.Carolina and the museum in Charleston. We saw a small tank, seemed not much there, except we spied two eyes peeping out from the dark rocks. Studying the eyes for awhile, we thought -- these are frog's eyes, and immediately imagined the frog and saw him -- this was not rock, it was dark frog! My highlight of the trip. Then we saw otters, moved close through the teenagers and up to where two little guys were pressing their faces against the glass. Then came the otters swimming, then maneuvering up and over a large heavy open circle which was a fat ring of moss, I think. then down into the water -- about five or six of them -- swam and put their noses right against the glass, where the little faces of the boys quickly withdrew with a gasp. This was fun to watch.

About to wander further in the museum, we were approached by an elderly man holding a baby aligator, about 24 or 30 inches long He talked at length about aligators which I won't go into here (even what I regall) except why they eat humans -- thinking they are the food because humans bring food and the aligator thinks (he thinks?) they are part of the food, there for them. They have no taste buds but double teeth, and when one breaks or rots, the inside tooth comes down and replaces the missing one. The man holding the aligator firmly but gently at the neck, with his hand, lets us feel the scales of the back and tail, and the stomach of the baby aligator. This was interesting, but at that point, I was a bit queasy, and somewhat dizzy. We asked for a restroom and one of the workmen dropped his tools, left his cart and walked us partway to a restroom. Timely! I lost my lunch. The echos were almost maddening -- voices, water running, and I don't know what else but it was overwhelming. Stayed with me several days -- nausea, dizziness -- the fish swimming round and round.

Last night, Carol, Mike, Margaret and I went to a neighbors meeting and it was very interesting and enjoyable; I was pleased I could hear the speaker at the meeting and the questions and answers, even chat a bit afterwards with neighbors I was meeting for the first time, until the room became raucus with the many voices and echos. The echos! Reeling, my stomach jerking -- I was again in the vast museum, fish swimming round and round..