I’ve been answering a lot of questions lately. A couple of blog posts ago, I mentioned that I’ve taken on hour-long shifts selling raffle tickets in the orientation gallery each day. The truth is that while I manage to sell a few tickets each day for the car and the chairs, most of my time is actually spent answering visitors’ questions. Something strange seems to happen each time I don my Buffalo Bill Historical Center nametag and take a seat behind the ticket-sellers’ desk: quite suddenly, I become an expert on everything—at least, that’s what many visitors seem to think.
They want to know it all: Where should I eat lunch? Where’s the bathroom? Where is my favorite bronze sculpture? Where’s the bathroom? Why aren’t there more arrowheads on display? Where’s the bathroom? Did Buffalo Bill go bankrupt before he died? Where’s the gift shop? What road do I take to reach Thermopolis? Where’s the bathroom?
Answering visitors’ inquiries doesn’t bother me at all. These aren’t tough questions, and for the most part, I’m capable of giving an answer—or at least passing along the name and e-mail address of someone else who can. There is, however, one question I’m struggling with, and it hasn’t come from a visitor. Media coordinator Marguerite House has asked me to be the featured staff member in the next installment of Your Museum Matters, a regular column in the Cody Enterprise, and one of the questions she’s asked me to answer is, “What is your favorite object at the BBHC and why?”
I’ve been mulling over the answer to this question for over a day now, and still haven’t settled on a favorite object. Is it Annie Oakley’s rifle? A painting by Koerner? A beautiful pair of moccasins? The wedding dress belonging to Buffalo Bill’s daughter? A stuffed moose? Truth be told, I haven’t got the slightest idea which object is my favorite. It’s a frustrating feeling, but in some strange way, it’s a good feeling, too. It’s good to know that there’s so many fascinating pieces of the historical center’s collection that a person can never pick just one favorite. But maybe all you readers are more decisive than me. So I’ll keep contemplating the answer to this question, and in the meantime, feel free to drop me a line and tell me about your favorite object of the center’ collection.
But whatever you do, please don’t ask me how to find the bathroom.
