Sunday, October 10, 2010

My Town Monday, the Oz Museum, Wamego, KS

As most of you probably know, I spent last week in Missouri and Kansas, doing school visits and speaking at the Kansas School Librarians' and Reading Council conference. (Don't quote me on the name of those two organizations; I could be off by a letter or a word or two!)

Thanks to my trusty Garmin (we're inseparable traveling companions!), I managed to find the Oz Museum (511 Lincoln St., Wamego, KS 66547-1633; 785.458.8686), on my way back to the Kansas City airport.

The Oz Museum in on the main drag of a little Kansas town. I didn't have to wait for many cars to pass before snapping this shot. The museum is small, but full of Wizard of Oz memoribilia. You can wander around or rent a self-guided audio tour for $2.00. The audio tour is also available for free right here on their website.

There were a few fun exhibits like this one, with excerpts from the book describing the scene.

A few bits of Oz trivia:
-In the book, the slippers were actually silver. Hollywood changed them to red so they'd show up more against the yellow of the Yellow Brick Road
-W.C. Fields was first choice to play the wizard. Unfortunately, disputes about money got in the way.
-Judy Garland so fell in love with Toto that she offered to buy him.


You know you're back in California when you can buy sushi by the pizza pan!

Mr. Summy and the fam were glad to have me home. Some of them (Mr. Summy, Child #4) expressed this more enthusiastically than others (the teens). :) However, everyone was pleased to get a fun Oz t-shirt with such slogans as:
-Dear Dorothy: Hate Oz, took the slippers, find your own way home. ~Toto
-Don't make me break out the flying monkeys.
-The flying monkeys ate my homework.

Please check out the links to the other My Town Monday posts on the official My Town Monday blog.


7 comments:

  1. Great post, Barrie. Welcome home. I loved the slogans from the Oz t-shirts. I hope you had a great time in middle America.

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  2. Sounds like a great detour! I'd love it if someone brought me a Flying Monkeys t-shirt! :)

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  3. I had no idea there was an Oz museum! How cool!

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  4. I've always wanted a flying monkey.

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  5. Oh how wonderful! How fun! I remember studying carefully how to kill a witch by throwing a bucket of water on her - lol! And Toto was adorable!!

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  6. Ah, so sweet that Judy and Toto got along. What a busy writer you are. Hope your talks went well - and I bet your youngest was happy to have you home.

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  7. Glad you enjoyed the time you spent in Kansas. Please come back sometime. I had a great time hanging out with you. Thanks for the wonderful comments. I didn't know I was uberfun. But hey, it feels good. I loved getting to meet you and share stories.

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Comments are always welcome!