The American Spectator

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Beyond the Quayle

By Jeremy Lott on 3.11.08 @ 12:08AM

(Page 3 of 5)

AS JOHNS WALKED me through the Museum, he filled me in on its history. The Huntington public library hosted an exhibit on the vice presidency of Quayle in 1993, and that led to the creation of the Dan Quayle Center and Museum.

The Quayle Foundation decided to expand it into a full museum for all of the vice presidents, which has been largely the product of Johns's efforts. He acquired most of the non-Quayle artifacts and built the wooden display cases himself.

The Museum is "not all that well known" to the "common person" Johns admitted, in part because it can't afford a large advertising campaign. "To do that would essentially break us," he said. The Museum's total budget is about $125,000 a year. It is funded in large part by an annual local celebrity golf tournament that Quayle comes back to take part in.

Other recent vice presidents or their estates have been reluctant to pitch in. Johns characterized their collective contributions as "only bits and pieces," though with the minimal acquisitions budget, he's happy to have those bits.

Ford's people sent a few pieces. The library of the University of Maryland chipped in with Agnew items. Cheney has donated the odd item and pledged that he will consider making a larger gift once he's left office.

Johns has enjoyed the challenge of taking a young institution and trying to grow it into something larger. He's had some success. The downstairs gallery feels cramped, which is better than being too spare. The vice-presidential memorabilia on display represents about half the items available. The Quayle items are about one-tenth of what could be shown.

According to Johns, Quayle wrote a memo to the museum after he had donated his personal papers and such saying, roughly, "Don't waste time with my baby pictures. People won't care."

However, Johns has found that people respond best to a good blend of the high and the low. With Quayle and with the other vice presidents, he's tried to find "unique stories" and colorful items to grab your attention and keep it.

Given American schoolchildren's general ignorance of history, that's not an easy thing to accomplish. Johns told me that when he asks children, "How many of you have ever heard of the Soviet Union?" they look at him blankly.

He illustrated the point by pointing to an official portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev, sans the famous mark-of-the-beast-sized birthmark, and asking, "What's missing?" Few of the students who come through the museum know the answer.

Creative storytellers can break through where historians fail, and Johns is determined to connect with his mostly younger audience. His selection of artifacts evinces a certain playfulness that children are bound to notice and maybe even -- who knows? -- appreciate.

One item that Johns ranks among his favorites is a cover of Puck magazine from 1907. The caricaturist made Charles Fairbanks into a "charlie bear," as a way of contrasting the aristocratic Fairbanks with rival Theodore Roosevelt, after whom the teddy bear was named. The point about Fairbanks is deftly made: there was nothing huggable (or bearlike) about him.

He pointed to some of the other items that he's especially proud of. Charles Dawes wrote the musical number titled Melody in A Major. It was later was later paired with words for the song It's All in the Game, Tommy Edwards's biggest hit.

JOHNS USES SHTICK to make obscure history come alive. During the tour of the Quayle wing, he warns students that something ominous happened to the future vice president while he was at law school and then affects concern about laying such heavy knowledge on impressionable young minds. They of course demand to know what it was.

Johns acted out his response for me, mock biting his knuckle and saying, "He--" dramatic pause -- "got married."

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