On this ride I have surprised myself by my interest in national sites, museums, and cultural venues. My brother would be happy to wander the wilds on Isle Royale; I would stay in Minneapolis at the Walker to marvel at how tiny Merce Cunningham was if those dance costumes were really his.

Gettysburg, whose experience I keep returning to, may be my DLRP* or my version of Elliot’s still point for this phase of my future life.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
The would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

(Burnt Norton, Section 2, LL 16 -21)

Historian friends talked to me about true history, and the history of popularizer like Barbara Tuchman. Their written works were different enterprises. So with living history, at places like Plimouth Plantation or Hancock Shaker Village, that could be true to their times, sanitized, or made up completely. The last is Disneyification, best expressed in EPOCT that allows the visitor to tour the world but not really learn much of foreign places or customs, like tacos for lunch at the school cafeteria on Cinco de Mayo. There is also the Disney model of managing crowds, nudging to get people moving where wanted, unobtrusively guiding the experience, and putting the experience first.

Gettysburg has been Dinseyfied in its presentation and management of visitors since my earlier visit. The visitor center is hidden from the battlefield, rather than being on the battlefield. It is an imposing two or three story tall brick structure, like a Northeast garden mall. The parking lots are like flower petals, not large box store lots that require traipsing over acres of asphalt but little satelites with a few hundred cars, parked on curves. (Except the RV lot, which is shared with busses and is a traditional rectilinear space, although like the others, screened by mature trees). Signs segregate visitors by private tours, fifteen minute standing zones close to the center, or busses, with offloading points at a modified curb, a little further away and with a separate walkway than the private tours. Both are segregated from the private automobiles, self-parked and ranging from close at hand to a walk along a concrete footpath through the undergrowth of the wooded screen.

In the large, multistory, atrium lobby, past the security check stands a long ticket counter with the usual cattle run of pylons and nylon bands directing patrons, zig-zag, to the cashier. A separate, more direct line is for tour groups. There are tickets for the film, cylcorama, and the new VR museum experience. They either a la carte or in Value Packs, that includes a bus tour. It is not the small, single story building of forty years ago that combined a gift shop and orientation center. Were we more trusted in those days to self-guide? Were we more accepting of the fumbling of patchy knowledge to our own experience rather than a structured experience? Were we just less rushed, or less inclined to impose our rushed, value maximizing experience on the battlefield?

Technology, both communications and media, have intruded. Many times in positive ways, especially if the visitor is in control. The self-guided audio tour in any national park, narrated by Park Rangers, is a great orientation. I find a printed map as a guide essential. But with this tour, you can be anal and always find the beginning, or with a little searching, start where you are, or, for the real explorer, make you own tour stopping for the audio complement where you choose.

All museums — governmental, public, or private — use digital technologies that range from the observed and easy to present without building another display or install a single purpose kiosk to the immersive. The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL, stands out for its immersive experience. Passing through the museum the displays are frequently duplicated to the right and the left and often in multiple numbers. The space is encompassing – the middle passage has screens with advancing waves, never ending, to right and left, the audio is all encompassing, and the moving images appear to crash almost at your feet. In this arrangement, the visitors do not jumble up and slow. Multitudes can be engaged at any one time. The full panoply of digital magic makes imprisoned slaves come alive in replica jail cells. Ironically, the richness of the exprience contrasts starkly with the final room where booths, as in a prison, allow you to talk with an inmate. Picking up a handset, you hear the words of a prisoner and see his image on a screen. By contrast with earlier experience, this is pretty primitive. But it’s simplicity brings home the point. A rich life and rich experiences are outside this world of orange jump suits, a heavy phone with earpiece and voice aperture and snaking metal clad cord.

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*DLRP — stands for data link reference point from the Link 11 digital tactical communications system coming into vogue when I was on active duty. The DLRP is a fixed geographic point everyone on the network agrees upon to make a common reference point for operations.