NAI Blog

Millions of Americans went out and saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows over the last few weeks. I don’t get it. For me, it’s just not Sherlock Holmes. Holmes, beloved detective of my childhood, was not an action hero. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes was cerebral, Victorian and, while quirky and adventurous, did not spend his time dodging bullets and explosions. Nor was he a pugilist, though I am not complaining too loudly as that plot contrivance allows us to see Robert Downey Jr. without his shirt on.

For many years Sherlock Holmes with his iconic pipe and deerstalker cap was synonymous with a detective. In fact, he was the model for one of my favorite campfire personas, “the World’s Greatest Nature Detective.” While the eyes, the nose, and the ears in this goofy pictures illustrated the sensory abilities that made this character “the world’s greatest” it is the hat, cape and pipe that said, without words, “detective.”

This character, thanks to Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock, will need to be retired.  After the massive hits of the last two films, the pipe, the cape and the hat are all now symbols of a by-gone Holmes.

NAI member Kelly Farrel from Arkansas State Parks also has a “nature detective” character, Inspector Insector. Kelly adapted her character from one portrayed by Chris Pistole, head of the education department at Wildcat Glades Audubon Center in Joplin, Missouri. Chris and Kelly’s crime solver is based on the Inspector Gadget or Columbo style of American, modern, urban detective. Hopefully they can continue to use this costume, although TV detectives these days seem to be extremely buff, wear t-shirts and jeans, and rarely seem to need their magnifying glass anymore.

Using pop culture in interpretation is a great trick to spice up a program and make your programs relevant. But we can go really wrong if we don’t keep up with changing attitudes and meanings. This is particularly important if you work with young people. For example it works, with children of a certain age, to ask on the trail if any of them remember in the film Pocahontas, when Grandmother Willow makes tea for an injured John Smith. You can then point out the willow tree and explain the medicinal property of its bark. This works because Pocahontas is on video and during certain ages most children are exposed to animated Disney films. (This is another rant, perhaps for my personal blog!)  On the other hand, in 1990 it was cool on the trail to describe poison oak as “the M.C. Hammer plant.” (Anyone? Anyone?) It worked then. Now, not so much!

Attach this blog to your movie receipts, which you can now deduct as research to make your programs relevant. Okay, check with your tax preparer on that last thing. Happy Trails folks, see you at the movies! —Amy Lethbridge

My grandson, Tim, hunts for invertebrates in the Arkansas River with Katie Emme, a friend and fish biologist.

It began for me in a muddy creek near my home. It did not begin in a classroom. It did not begin in a book. It did not begin at a lecture. My instructors were not people. My teachers had claws. They would pinch me. They made me squeal. I liked them.

When talking to a room full of biologists, museum folks, educators, scientists or interpreters, I sometimes ask, “Where did it begin for you?” About one out of fifty says – in class with my teacher or in a classroom. The other 49 found their own special connection to love for nature or history playing outside, going through old stuff, in play dramas with friends, or out with a parent or grandparent to do something. People tell great stories about their first memories of wanting to know more about their world.

I do not disparage the good work of teachers. I had Miss Griffin, Mr. Mills, Miss Barr, Dr. Matten, Dr. Reinhold, Dr. Kleinau and others who taught with passion and skill. They helped me grow. But I caught fire with the crawdads. They fed my imagination, my desire to know more. They shot backward through the water. They had eggs under their tails. They lived under rocks in the water. Very cool.

The crawdads lit my pilot light – that flickering flame that blazes when the right fuel is nearby. I still get excited. I still want to know more. But I do not sit through lectures well. And yet, we still lecture to kids. It may not actually harm them, but it may not accomplish much. Questions engage their minds. Mysteries bring them into the intrigue of discovery. Experiments help them understand investigative processes. Technology takes them to places they cannot even imagine – into cells, into the deep ocean trenches, into the hypersonic sounds of the night sky, onto the surface of Mars, or down a blood vessel.

When get kids outdoors or in real contact with the world in whatever ways, we may light that light for them. It is tough to extinguish it once it is lit. School, work, life in general will ebb and flow and our enthusiasm will have someone dampen it. But curiosity about the world that is fed early endures. Great interpretation is not so much about what we tell people as what we ask them. And getting kids into the creek or dressed up in historic garb can be captivating. At least it was for me. Where did it begin for you?

- Tim Merriman