Greensboro, Day 2 - 3/8/11

Greensboro pics

We were a little better about getting up on our second morning in Greensboro, and set out for a second time to the free Greensboro Historical Museum. When we walked in the front doors, we were immediately engulfed in tables, complete with tablecloths and linens and place settings and centerpieces. There was some sort of event going on, where the museum had been rented out in lieu of a conference hall. Usually, we check in at the desk even for free museums, but they were busy and didn’t even look up when we walked in their direction, so we veered off and headed up the stairs.

We walked through rooms of Greensboro history, from the Native Americans to the civil rights movements of the 1960’s. Two Revolutionary War battles had been fought in Guilford County, one won and won lost. According to the museum, in one of these battles England lost so many men that they never recovered. The museum also asked the question - what would you do if asked to choose a side. Which prompted a discussion between Tricia and I - can you really say what you would do when you already know the outcome? Trying to overthrow a foreign government and failing may have been disastrous. Not fighting the American Revolution at all may have been the best course of action. There’s no way to know.

Greensboro was the site of the first sit-in, when four black college students sat at the lunch counter at Woolworths and refused to leave until they were served. The sit-in finally ended when several of Woolworths’ own black employees were the first to be served at its counter. The museum had a section of the original Woolworths counter and barstools on display. The Greensboro Woolworths closed down in about 1995 and has just recently been converted into a Civil Rights Museum.

We went back to the main area and had to weave through tables of people to get to the stairs. On the next level, we got to see what Greensboro would have been like years ago. We visited the firehouse and pretended to slide down the pole. We listened to conversations at the phone operator’s switchboard. In the schoolhouse we sat at the desks and wrote on the blackboard. In the pharmacy we “mixed” medications (using puzzle pieces….yes, we’re 9 year olds at heart). And then in the movie theater we watched examples of the first movies - black and white with no sound. And no plot.

Of course we needed to stop in at the Greensboro public library next, where Tricia added some books to the extensive list she is building. And then we took off for the Guilford County Courthouse. Outside was a lady selling hot-dogs. It always makes me really happy to eat food from a street vendor, so Tricia and I split one. The lady cut it in half for us and added mustard, relish, onions, and sauerkraut, and ketchup on Tricia’s half. It was pretty yummy.

There wasn’t much to see in the courthouse, so we walked around downtown for a bit. At a bar called Stumble Stiltskins, Tricia wanted a picture stumbling in front of her. I told her three times that the picture was blurry and she should stumble again before she realized I was teasing her. J (I would totally have done the same thing!) We also went to the gift shop in the Civil Rights Museum. It’s supposed to be really cool, but we haven’t yet spent $10 to see a museum, so……

Back at the house, we had a little spot of ice cream before dinner. And then we tried to blog. We’re working on it. J For dinner we had sloppy joes and pasta salad and potato salad. And we broke out some Doritos too, since they were feeling neglected that no one wanted them the night before.

After dinner, our friends went to a choral concert at the high school, leaving us to write a bit. I bribed Tricia with ice cream and tv if she would finally finish writing about the Houston rodeo. This tactic worked, and we made ourselves big comforting bowls of ice cream and settled onto the couch for the second tv of our entire trip. It took us literally 7 minutes to figure out how to work the tv (turns out the power button on the remote didn’t work, even though it still lit up when pressed), but we finally managed to tune in to Glee. Which we haven’t seen since in a very long time, since we didn’t even have the free cable channels last year. Kurt transferred schools? Emma married the dentist? Brittany is still dating Artie? Didn’t see any of those coming!