{"id":"01KG6FHSKN8Z2HSD371X8X4AGX","cid":"bafkreigbg3eey5on72fftxwnmuzrvmeay3bdz7jzojh3oiqor4vect27o4","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreidzp67qdhkwcveb6hgkrx6rpmy5mzwksihsvbr7c43swxizjnawqa","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"Rye_page_0065.jpg","height":2400,"key":"pdf-page-1769744163162-8xv37rw0gfa","label":"Rye_page_0065.jpg","page_number":65,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":856889,"text":"Columbus discovering America, having one helluva time getting old Ferdinand and\nIsabella to lend him the dough to buy ships with, and then the sailors mutinying on him\nand all. Nobody gave too much of a damn about old Columbus, but you always had a lot\nof candy and gum and stuff with you, and the inside of that auditorium had such a nice\nsmell. It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn't, and you were in the\nonly nice, dry, cosy place in the world. I loved that damn museum. I remember you had\nto go through the Indian Room to get to the auditorium. It was a long, long room, and you\nwere only supposed to whisper. The teacher would go first, then the class. You'd be two\nrows of kids, and you'd have a partner. Most of the time my partner was this girl named\nGertrude Levine. She always wanted to hold your hand, and her hand was always sticky\nor sweaty or something. The floor was all stone, and if you had some marbles in your\nhand and you dropped them, they bounced like madmen all over the floor and made a\nhelluva racket, and the teacher would hold up the class and go back and see what the hell\nwas going on. She never got sore, though, Miss Aigletinger. Then you'd pass by this long,\nlong Indian war canoe, about as long as three goddam Cadillacs in a row, with about\ntwenty Indians in it, some of them paddling, some of them just standing around looking\ntough, and they all had war paint all over their faces. There was one very spooky guy in\nthe back of the canoe, with a mask on. He was the witch doctor. He gave me the creeps,\nbut I liked him anyway. Another thing, if you touched one of the paddles or anything\nwhile you were passing, one of the guards would say to you, \"Don't touch anything,\nchildren,\" but he always said it in a nice voice, not like a goddam cop or anything. Then\nyou'd pass by this big glass case, with Indians inside it rubbing sticks together to make a\nfire, and a squaw weaving a blanket. The squaw that was weaving the blanket was sort of\nbending over, and you could see her bosom and all. We all used to sneak a good look at\nit, even the girls, because they were only little kids and they didn't have any more bosom\nthan we did. Then, just before you went inside the auditorium, right near the doors, you\npassed this Eskimo. He was sitting over a hole in this icy lake, and he was fishing\nthrough it. He had about two fish right next to the hole, that he'd already caught. Boy, that\nmuseum was full of glass cases. There were even more upstairs, with deer inside them\ndrinking at water holes, and birds flying south for the winter. The birds nearest you were\nall stuffed and hung up on wires, and the ones in back were just painted on the wall, but\nthey all looked like they were really flying south, and if you bent your head down and\nsort of looked at them upside down, they looked in an even bigger hurry to fly south. The\nbest thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.\nNobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would\nstill be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south,\nthe deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their\npretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that\nsame blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be\nyou. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just\nbe different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your\npartner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd\nhave a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your\nmother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of\nthose puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in\nsome way--I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:36:03.162Z","text_extracted_by":"pdf-processor","text_has_content":true,"text_source":"born_digital","uploaded":true,"width":1855},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFHMJM2J9JHQAQM1Q9SKBJWF","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KFF1K6A8V452X8SQKY55DD16","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6FHT9JFAN1F7AS9YP5837V","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6FHT9M6F17GJMKDZD1BE1T","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KG6FM2MK92P8TPG7W5FMY3FF","peer_label":"Rye_page_0065_medium.jpg","peer_type":"file","predicate":"has_derivative"},{"peer":"01KG6FM5X3WN957T081CA2T8J9","peer_label":"Rye_page_0065_thumb.jpg","peer_type":"file","predicate":"has_derivative"},{"peer":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","predicate":"has_assembly"}],"ver":6,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:36:04.469Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:40:41.679Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFC4A8W8939TXGEXCK439ZK"}}