Lincoln Home Randomness

Here is our Lincoln Home 2009 staff photo. It was taken a few weeks ago, but I haven't had a chance to post it yet. I am, as usual, in the front row with the short people :-) We have about 50 staff members (not all of them were there the day of the picture). Twenty of us are in the Interpretation Division--so we do all of the history/visitor contact stuff; and about 30 others work in the Maintenance Division--so they keep all the buildings and grounds looking nice.

So, the Lincoln Home is pretty much the most interesting place I have ever worked. There is literally never a dull moment there. The other day a cat ran into the Lincoln Home. It was amazing. The door was only open for about 30 seconds while a tour group was going in, and this random cat walking down the street just bolted for the door, ran inside, and went straight for the Lincoln's ORIGINAL horse hair furniture! Luckily Ranger Rose caught it just before it leapt onto the sofa. My philosophy is that it is a descendant of the famous "Lincoln Cats" (not quite as famous as the Hemingway cats). Abraham Lincoln loved cats and used to always bring home stray kitties to feed (I wonder what Mary thought of this).

Yesterday I was taking a tour through the house, and I had just ushered the group down the stairs and into the kitchen. When I looked up and saw another group through the dining room, I almost gasped out loud--there was Abraham Lincoln. Well, it wasn't really Abraham Lincoln. It was one of the many ULI's we get (Unauthorized Lincoln Impersonators). Basically, tall men with dark hair and beards like to come walk around the site so that people give them weird looks and ask to have their picture taken with them. This guy looked pretty good--except for the fact that he was in a t-shirt and jeans. Lincoln never wore jeans.

I really do not enjoy the evenings when I have to close the park--because it means I'm in the Visitor Center from 5:00-7:00 p.m.--the time when we always run out of tour tickets. And people can be very nasty. The other night it was about 5:30 p.m., and a lady wanted to go see the house. I told her that we were booked until 6:30, and she got all huffy. She said, "That is much too long to wait. I'm leaving." And she stormed out. Well, about 15 minutes later, she came back in and said, "Well, I guess I'll wait a whole hour if I have to." Unfortunately, by that time I was out of tickets for the rest of the evening. As you can imagine, this news was not well received by the lady, and she kind of freaked out. She was really incredibly rude to me. It was the end of a long day, and my fuse was already running short, so I put on my angry ranger face and became very curt with her. I don't like mean people. But I do really like nice people. Yesterday I took the cutest little girl through the house. She was in a wheelchair and couldn't really communicate, except by smiling. And she was always smiling about everything. I think more people (including myself) need to be more like her. Just smile--it makes you (and those around you) feel better.