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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."

He hopes the jokes help young people remember the vice presidents. Of Marilyn Quayle's inaugural ball gown, he tells the kids, "If you stand in front of the dress case just right, it looks like you're wearing it."

I wondered about a photo of Dan Quayle in hot pink shorts, running in a race for a medical charity. "Those were cool colors for that year," he answered gallantly.

Johns sends classes on scavenger hunts through the museum with lists of questions, from the crushingly obvious to real brain teasers. This forces students to invest time and energy, both mental and physical, in the vice presidency, he explains, creating the outside possibility they will be excited by what has been unfairly assumed to be the world's most boring constitutional office.

I had to ask: Had the students ever broken anything? Johns started to answer but then hesitated. He explained that he was "going to say no," but couldn't say that in good conscience.

Certainly no "exhibit" has so far been destroyed, he said, and then rapped his knuckle on a wooden countertop for good luck. Of course, it helped that all the glass in the display cases is really clear plastic. But for the most part the kids have been well behaved.

One actual glass shelf in the gift shop was shattered, however. Johns had just finished the look-but-don't-touch-or-you-might-hurt-yourself- and-bleed-all-over-the-exhibits spiel. And then, predictably, he heard it:

Smash!

As he related the story to me, John looked pained, like he'd just swallowed a wasp. I wouldn't have wanted to be the accidental vandal that day.

TOWARD THE END of the tour, he talked about how people view the museum. Preconceptions play a shockingly large role. For years many visitors -- especially those from out of state -- came expecting either "a shrine to Vice President Quayle" or a political freak show.

They'd challenge Johns, "I bet you don't have the potatoe," or "So where's the Quayle-Bentsen debate?" They weren't quite sure how to react when he pointed out that those things were there -- loud and proud.

Johns told me that media coverage at least has become slightly less silly. Reporters have focused less on the novelty of having a museum devoted to the vice presidents and more on what it has to present.

The editors of the tourism website RoadSideAmerica.com went in to the museum with a snarky attitude. "The museum's slogan is 'Second To One,' but can any display or artifact disprove the notion that the Veep is the vestigial organ of national politics?" they wondered. Johns's collection at least caused them to give some grudging respect to that "happy-go-lucky golfer-son-of-a-gun."

Johns showed me a few reasonably positive mentions, including an AARP magazine clip and related a surprise that he received when he was lecturing to students. A man who poked his head up above the top of the stairs Johns recognized as Ed Roush -- the incumbent Democratic congressman Quayle trounced in 1976.

Johns took the job at the museum because it allowed him to be close to a sick family member and allowed him the opportunity to shape a growing institution. He stays because he has more than a passing interest in the subject. He told me that he's one of the last men standing who can name all the vice presidents, though I never thought to make the obvious retort: "Let's hear 'em."

One of his challenges in crafting the historical narratives of all of the veeps is "keep politics out of it." The future of the museum will have to be less Quayle-centric. For this to happen, other vice presidents will have to step up with donations and even speak there on occasion. The way to secure their cooperation will be to stick around for a while and -- more importantly -- to tell their stories well.

THE MUSEUM'S TASK of securing vice-presidential donations is made more difficult for one obvious institutional reason: about one-third of the vice presidents go on to become presidents and get their very own taxpayer-funded library and museum. This gives them little incentive to break up their personal collections.

Vanity and regret are also obstacles. Every vice president is but one heartbeat away from his very own museum. Many veeps who fail to transition to the White House continue to think that political comebacks are imminent -- that fate will break their way for once.

Stern-headed realists might want to disabuse them of that notion but it would be the realists who are full of it. As the story of the vice presidency shows, almost anything is possible.

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