Live History Days intrigues, challenges visitors
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POLSON — Rides in a 1967 tank used in the Vietnam War were popular with kids at the Miracle of America Museum’s Live History Days on July 21 and 22. Although the tank can rumble along at 40 miles per hours, Gil Mangels, Miracle of America Museum director, kept it slower.
Kids also could don a helmet and raise themselves through the gun turret. Tank rides, Army jeep rides, rides in the kid’s train or even on the miniature railroad were only part of the fun. There were planes and helicopters to sit in, antique machines to puzzle over, grinders to try a hand at pulverizing corn and even a sawyer sawing logs in a sawmill.
Andrew Speer was carving wooden ducks, and Trina Phillips was making pinecone baskets and displaying leatherwork. In the Mountain View Schoolhouse, there was a schoolmarm.
“The crowd is about average,” Mangels said, although he’d like to see more guests.
Repeat customers Jenaya Forman and her four children come to Live History Days each summer; it’s a tradition in their family.
Forman enjoyed seeing photos of her grandfather and great aunts in the Mountain View Schoolhouse. Then she saw members of her mom’s family, the Dubays, in the potato exhibit.
If it gets too warm, visitors can take a look at all indoor exhibits, too.
A new gadget, a pole with round metal disks welded to it and used to drop golf balls onto, was the favorite of one young visitor.
“This is the best place ever,” he stated.
