It seems my husband David has fallen into a life of crime; he sent an email to his mom just now telling her that she had left her red umbrella in our car, and he was holding it hostage for some mushroom barley soup.

Red Brolly Hostage Crisis, Day One

David’s parents had heard good things of an exhibition at the Milwaukee Public Museum called “St Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes.” They bought tickets and we arranged to meet at the Hyatt on Lake-Cook Road, where we’ve found it convenient to rendezvous with other friends in order to take one car north to the Bristol Renaissance Faire or other points in the direction of Cheeseheadland.

So, in squally weather, we met up and drove north, chatting about this and that and planning a possible future outing to see WWDTM, where my mother-in-law can content herself with shushing me for laughing too loud as she has done at improv comedy shows in the past (sometimes with a family member actually performing at that very moment). Because of the rain, Leah had brought her trusty red umbrella, in case we had to trek some distance to the museum from parking. Also, the original plan was to stay in Milwaukee for dinner.

With the able help of our onboard GPS, Edna, we arrived at the museum, parked in the underground garage, got ourselves sorted out, and had a nice lunch, all the while discussing the kinds of family ephemera that are the bread and butter of daily existence. Leah, for example, is becoming an art maven; she’s lined up speakers for a an art club she belongs to in her area and was telling us about her “gets,” and how even the people who turned her down were so lovely and gracious, she apologized for even asking.

Dad and David and I visited the Butterfly Wing environment, and I noted that it ain’t the heat, it’s the humidity as I regretted dressing for the outdoors, rather than the indoors. Lovely butterflies, though. Then we visited the bugs next door. I took a picture of some sort of stick insect thing. There were some rather horrible millipedes that were as big around as a garden hose, except with self-propelling feet. Also: glow in the dark scorpions!!! Who knew that scorpions glowed under UV light? I spent my summer vacations in Grand Junction being scared of scorpions, and I DID NOT KNOW THIS. We spent some more time after lunch wandering the ground floor/first floor area, which seemed like a modern “take” on museums, with a lot of dioramas of scientists doing all different kinds of scientific field work and specimen prep work.

Finally it was time to go upstairs to the special exhibition area. We all ended up getting audio guides – usually David and I pass on them at the Art Institute shows we go to with his parents – and we started with a full-size mockup of the original, ancient tomb of St Peter, which was discovered years ago buried deep under the high altar at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The narration in the audio guide was straightforward, but lacking in a lot of detail. The exhibits moved through the period of the “old” basilica of Constantine to the “new” basilica that we know today, with some background on the many popes and artists that worked and struggled to build it. Then the treasures started showing up – some very beautiful things, and some things that were just… overwhelmingly ornate and “bling-bling.” There was a timeline with historical context in several of the rooms, but most of the exhibits just showed one jeweled tiara after another – one had a good story, though. Napoleon held one pope more or less hostage – he was forced into exile for years – and Napoleon gave him a papal tiara that included the world’s largest emerald… and deliberately ordered it made several sizes too small to fit that particular pope. That had to be one of the world’s most expensive practical jokes.

After finally completing our pilgrimage ( the last room contained several items that had belonged to John Paul II, and there was a bronze cast of his hands that visitors were encouraged to touch), we escaped to the rest of the museum. For a while, we all sat discussing the exhibit, next to a very Santa-like gentleman with a tremendous big white beard. Not wishing to offend everybody within earshot of the misgivings we’d all felt as we went farther and farther into the exhibit, we chatted about silly things with the guy next to us. When we got up to leave, he said to David “Come back when you can grow a proper beard.” Wandering, wandering, wandering, the guys got ahead of us somewhere after the European Village area and we were on our own, my mom-in-law and I, We looked at static diorama after static diorama (the ones on the first floor are animated or have a little interactivity)> Leah and I started to form the opinion that something was not quite right in museumland.

It seemed that although there were many, many items in the individual exhibits, from countries and cultures the world over, there was very little explanation or context. And where there was a sign or a description of the items in the case, it was set somewhere hard to read. Leah remarked that the older part of the museum, which consisted of a series of galleries with cases full of textiles, or ceramics, or masks… had a very Sixties feel. Lots of dioramas, no story. No captions. I wondered if the museum felt it was better to send people through in an escorted group with a docent or something – in many cases, I knew a little about pieces or artifacts because I had seen similar things in the Royal B.C. Museum – and so did Leah. Around about the time we were wandering through various cultures in Asia, I received a text message from David:

“Where are you?” he sent.

“India,” I replied.

So we wandered along and took our time, but the lack of basic background information had begun to pall. Finally, after strolling through Meso-America and the South Pacific, we met up with the guys at the crossroads of Africa and Australia, and agreed that it was time to head out. I did take some time to admire the dramatic Pow Wow diorama – the dancer’s figures are really amazing. But we all agreed that we were weary of looking at things without learning very much about them. We decided that rather than hang around for another 2 hours waiting to have dinner at some place they’d picked in Milwaukee, we’d drive south to a restaurant near where their car was parked.

After a lengthy discussion of the Vatican exhibit in the privacy of the car, we all came to the same conclusion – that all that tremendous wealth displayed in the Vatican, and in all the many many churches of Europe, was beautiful, but a terrible waste of resources that could have gone to relieve poverty over the centuries. At least some of the modern popes have dispensed with SOME of the paraphernalia, most specifically the jewelled, embroidered, woven-silver fabric tiaras – a modern pope decided to sell his and give the money to the poor. Since then, no more funny beehive-shaped pope hats. Anyway, all the ostentatious display of wealth and power left us feeling a little jaded.

We had dinner at Wildfire, where the beef barley soup was good and all the entrees we chose delicious. It was a very, very nice meal. David talked about home-made soup with his mom, and we all groaned comfortably when the dessert tray came around. No, thank you.

After we said goodbye and headed home, David discovered the forgotten red brolly in the back seat. It’s ours now, until his mom pays the ransom.