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| J. Huntington "Hunt" Lewis as Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge in the HRNM gallery. (Courtesy of Hunt Lewis) |
HRNM Docent & Contributing Writer
I think I can speak best to the pleasures that I have enjoyed as a docent with the Hampton Roads Naval Museum over the past 25 years.
Friends.
When I began training as a docent, the museum was in the process of moving from the Pennsylvania House on Naval Station Norfolk to Nauticus, which had yet to be open. Our class of docents numbered around twenty. From March through April of 1994, we trained two days a week. One day was spent in formalized training; the other spent visiting other museums in the area. These were pre-[Battleship]Wisconsin days, and we developed a real comradeship, and we spent many years together.
Giving tours to visitors.
During our training period, we had no museum filled with artifacts for us to give practice tours, but we did have a diagram of where the artifacts would be located in the relocated museum at Nauticus together with a “script” listing the text contents of the new label plates. I knew that once the museum reopened, visitors might ask me questions to which I didn’t have ready answers. So from the “script” and the Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, I developed a pocket notebook that I refer to for on-the-spot answers. That development was the geneses of my knowledge of naval history and my confidence as a docent.
When asked during training what our preferences as a docent would be, I indicated a preference to work with the library or newspaper because I had always been more at ease with the technical aspects or things than interacting with people. But when the museum had its “soft opening” on May 1, 1994, a month before the official opening of Nauticus on June 1st, the museum was packed with visitors and every docent had to be out on the floor, and I found I enjoyed giving tours. When I am not on the floor, I’m still not much of a people person and not given to small talk, but on the floor I’ve become an outgoing person, to the extent that I’ve participated in the museum’s Speaker’s Bureau and do costumed interpretation, even hamming the latter up a bit.
Working with kids.
There were the third grade "Life at Sea" and fifth grade "Blacks in Blue" programs. For the third grade program, the Norfolk City School system sent all their third graders to Nauticus. Each day the students were divided into four groups, which rotated through Nauticus and the museum. So each morning, we had four "Life at Sea" presentations to give. Usually there were enough docents that a single docent would not have to do more than two presentations, but sometimes I had to do three and even all four.
The reactions of the kids were the fun part. When I talked about discipline and the "cat-o-nine tales", I would tell the class that a young man was caught washing his hands in the scuttlebutt, which was their drinking water. I would ask the children, “How many lashes do you think he deserves?” Some would say five or ten or maybe fifty, but then a youngster would pipe up and say a thousand. My response would be "You don't like him very well, do you?”
Then when talking about recreation–checkers, music, mending clothes–we would mention smoking, a very bad habit that you should never do, and then I would pass around a plug of tobacco saying “It smells like dirty armpit, doesn't it? “ Occasionally a kid wouldn't touch it or throw it away.
The fifth grade program for the Norfolk City School System was similarly organized. The museum presented the participation of blacks in the US Navy by highlighting noted characters followed by a “fun” exercise in which the students acted as a anti-aircraft gun crew. They were shown silhouettes of enemy and U.S. aircraft and told they needed to memorize those silhouettes because they might see one or more might be attacking their ship. Then a docent would “fly in” two larger silhouettes constructed in three dimensions one following the other. One of the silhouettes would be enemy, the other American. The class would then be asked “Which one would you shoot down?” The class usually identified the enemy, but I had to tell one teacher she shot down the American aircraft.
Research and being able to help visitors with their questions.
During my early years at the museum, one of my greatest joys was talking to World War II vets and pulling their ship’s histories for them. Again time tells and that opportunity has become rarer. One vet that I remember was a merchant mariner that had three ships torpedoed out from under him. He remembered being sheltered at one of the downtown Norfolk hotels, but remembered little about the hotel. Fortunately, he has written his name and address in Raleigh in our guest book which I retrieved after he and his wife had departed. I was able to dig up information on that hotel, and since my wife and I were shortly going to Raleigh to visit her family, I took the information with me and gave it to the vet in his retirement home. Other research has given me friends as far away as Germany and Australia. Friendships that I still maintain via the internet.
A chance to be creative.
Back in 1999, the museum director asked me if I could prepare a small entry for the Navy newspaper The Flagship. The entry would be the size of a small advertisement and would be sponsored by the Museum and The Flagship. This led to a 16-year effort of preparing weekly “Moments in Naval History.” These entries were historical (commemoration of battles), little known facts about the Navy, and if all possible I would give them a humorous twist. This obviously required a lot of research and gave me a chance to be creative at the same time.
In summary, I can only say that these years with the museum have been the most satisfying and enjoyable years of my life.
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