Plowing the mind: From the Little House on the Prairie...

I just finished listening to this week's episode of This American Life on the radio and I'm in tears. The episode is called, "The book that changed my life," and one of the speakers told about her love of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. That made me think of the pilgrimage we made many years ago to the Ingalls family home, where Laura wrote the books, and the significance of that trek in daughter Emily's life.

I remember Rob, Emily, Claire, and I driving across Missouri from Illinois (I think Rob had given a talk at our alma mater), wondering if it was worth the time and effort to get there. Sure, Em loved the Little House books more than anything. But we didn't know if that would translate into any connection with the house or the land or anything beyond the books themselves.

I'm not sure Em believes me but I think that trip was the trip that sealed her love of museums. From the moment we stepped on to the Ingalls grass, the Ingalls home was as much a part of her as her own home in Northridge, California. This was her land, these were her people. Everything had meaning - from the desk to the carriage to the trees. I still cry when I think of her running up to Rob and me inside the little museum there saying, "Look! There's Pa's fork!!!" It was the moment I knew what Emily was going to do with her life. It was the moment I knew the awesome power of fiction and history and of family love. And it is one of my most treasured travel memories.

I couldn't find an image of Pa's fork on the internet, but did find Pa's fiddle, about which Laura wrote, "We never could have gotten through it all without Pa's fiddle."

So it is with deep and profound joy that I imagine Emily beginning her internship with the National Building Museum next week. The National Building Museum is housed in an appropriately amazing building. It was built in the 1880's as the U.S. Pension Bureau building. Em says that the steps in front are very short in height, to make it easier for pensioners to climb them. That's a thoughtful building.

The outside is gorgeous brick, modeled on the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. The Palazzo was designed by Michelangelo, so you can't go wrong with that as your starting point. But it's the Great Hall that is the true showstopper. It was modeled on the Palazzo della Cancelleria, also in Rome, with columns designed after Santa Maria degli Angeli, also by Michelangelo. The columns are some of the tallest classical columns in the world. They measure 8 feet wide and 75 feet tall. I hope I don't embarrass Emily, but I have a tendency to hug columns, and though I can't get my arms around these, I have a feeling that I won't be able to hold myself back. Fortunately, on the day we're visiting, she will be at work, so she won't have to witness my lack of columnal-hug control.

The Ingalls Homestead is in De Smet, South Dakota, which was the setting for The Long Winter. Each July they do a Laura Ingalls Wilder pageant and act out the books to a recorded sound track. The actors are farmers and family of farmers, and the cost is only $8. So, I'm starting to have the feeling I get when a trip starts to plant itself in my head. I've googled the location of De Smet and found that it's only 60 miles from Watertown which was originally called "Kemp, South Dakota" which is about as good a sign as I require to start planning some adventure. Below is the Ingalls/Wilder homestead. If a family can get through a winter living in that, they deserve to have a book written about them.

So, soon Em will be climbing the short steps of the National Building Museum in our nation's capitol, tracing the paths of the pensioners and those attending Inaugural Balls. And I can't help thinking about Pa's fork.