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The museum's almost too slick (no oil pun intended): fancy display cases, a recreated Kilgore street scene with plastic mud, etc. There are great '30s photographs, however, with explanatory blurbs that are often deliciously cryptic--e.g., one mentions the "London School Explosion" which killed 300, but you're left guessing why a school happened to combust. And the best exhibit is the Boom Town Cinema where you watch a film and slide show touting the achievements of the Texas oil industry--and repressing thoughts of the current oil glut. At the climax of the film a gusher comes in and all of the theater seats shake. Physically shake. Sensurround, get lost!
A young girl screamed. A middle-aged woman behind me commented to her elderly mother, "It's a good thang y'all got a strong heart, Mama, or that would've killed you."
From the Oil Museum it's a short walk to the Rangerette Showcase. I'd never heard of the Rangerettes, but the brochure to the Showcase informed me that they "have been called 'the most sought after collegiate performers in the world.'" A claim I wouldn't dare contest.
Apparently the Rangerettes are a "precision dance-drill team." Indeed, their founder, Gussie Nell Davis, is said to be the originator of precision dance-drill. Another claim I wouldn't dare contest.
The Rangerettes are an aggressively perky cadre of young women, as you might imagine, but what you probably don't realize is that the criteria for selection as a member of the team include: "normal rhythm, flexibility (for their trademark, the 'High Kick'), ability to learn quickly, good memory, and willingness to work within the group for precision." No show-offs allowed in the Showcase.
A Rangerette's hard work doesn't end on the football field either. No sir. She is "enrolled in a full course study and must maintain a 'C' average in her studies. Many are honor students." Just in case you thought they were just bimbettes on display! Laura Mulvey, get outta here.
Back on the road, a sorta back road through East Texas, I was tempted to stop in Moscow, TX, to tour Dinosaur Gardens.
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"Today, a million years after the first primitive human made his appearance, there are dinosaurs to be seen again by modern man! WELL--and you have probably guessed it by now--we can see dinosaurs in skeleton form in museums all over the world. AND now DINOSAUR GARDENS has life size replicas setting in a natural surrounding with real wild animal sounds to make you feel you are deep in the jungle as you view the towering creatures."
What they lacked in syntax, they made up for in earnestness. But there wasn't time to view the towering creatures.
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Houston beckoned...had to suck the marrow from Big City Life, don't you know.