IJMC - "Hello, this is the Smithsonian."

Hmm, I think this gives me an idea for a contest. If you could ask the 
Smithsonian any question, what would it be? I'll pick the top ten 
questions, and place them in a future IJMC post with the winner's names 
alongside...if you expecting better, well, wait til I win the lottery! 
Just send your questions to the reply address.                    -dave




	WASHINGTON (AP) -- ``There's a mastodon in my back yard.''
	That's what the woman said when she telephoned the Smithsonian
Institution, wondering if scientists could excavate the ice age
creature.
	Then there are the folks who called asking if the Great Wall of
China was on exhibit, or how about the ``original Bible.'' You
know, 10 Commandments. Tablets. Moses.
	Some of the hundreds of calls the Smithsonian fields each day
involve age-old questions -- what's the name of the man who invented
the wheel? Or space-age queries -- where can they see flying saucers
on display?
	``They just assume that everything's here and that we can answer
every question,'' says Cordelia Benedict, who has supervised the
Smithsonian's telephone information services for nearly a decade.
``We treat every call respectfully. People don't like to be laughed
at.''
	Besides, even Encyclopaedia Britannica researchers have called
(asking about the history of the razor blade) and questioners from
``Jeopardy!'' often burn up the lines seeking game show material.
	Benedict and three dozen volunteers answer mostly mundane
questions: How do you get to the Smithsonian's museums in
Washington? When are they open? And does the Metro pass by? The
most detailed questions often get shuttled to other departments
such as anthropology.
	``We don't want to make people look stupid, but some of these
questions are off the wall,'' says Marilyn London, head of the
anthropology outreach and public information office. ``But no
question is a bad question.''
	And London usually has an answer, or knows who does.
	``I think we told the guy who wanted to know who invented the
wheel that there was no way of telling,'' she says. ``But my
response would have been, how do you know it was a man?''
	Here are some samples of queries:
	--Can a small plane land on the Mall? The caller was sure it
could since ``all those planes in the Air and Space Museum had to
get there somehow.''
	--Is Fawn Hall's underwear on display? This from ``two men in a
Texas bar who obviously had a lot to drink,'' says Benedict. ``We
get a lot of calls from people wanting us to settle bets.'' (No,
Oliver North's secretary didn't donate her dainties, nor hide
documents in them as some claimed.)
	--Where is the Ark of the Covenant? (Try Indiana Jones movies.)
	--Does the Smithsonian display Civil War planes? (The Wright
brothers didn't pioneer aviation until 1903.)
	--Is the Smithsonian interested in buying the carcass of Bigfoot?
	--Will the Smithsonian sell the starship Enterprise, used for the
popular ``Star Trek'' television show? ``She only wanted it if the
transporter was in working condition,'' Benedict says. (The only
life-size Enterprise at the Smithsonian is the space shuttle of the
same name).
	--Can the Smithsonian set up a caller with a hula teacher?
``Actually, I tracked one down for her,'' remembers London. ``We
have a curator involved in South Pacific and Hawaiian culture, so
she knew one.''
	--How do you say ``I'm thinking of you'' in Apache?
	--Can you send ``all the information you have on human evolution,
even the secret stuff?'' from a grade school letter writer.
	--How about the coin George Washington tossed across the Delaware
River?
	--Could the Smithsonian take a ``petrified whale'' off a caller's
hands? He was referred to paleontology. ``I told him that means
`very old biology,' and he said, `good because this is a very old
whale,''' Benedict recalls.
	--And one of Benedict's favorites: an offer to donate a
collection of potato chips resembling ``famous people and
animals.''
	Benedict keeps the gems of the day -- about three or four out of
every 650 calls made to her department -- in a battered green folder
that ``just gets thicker and thicker.''
	The Smithsonian might issue a book with 150 of the most
interesting queries to mark the museum's 150th year anniversary in
1996, says Benedict, who hopes to title it, ``There's a Mastodon in
My Back Yard.''
	Hey, what about that woman's question?
	``There was literally a mastodon buried on her ranch,'' Benedict
says. ``She was right. We referred her to the vertebrate
department, I think.''
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	Smithsonian telephone information services: (202) 357-2700.