(by Jamie Kageleiry) (from the 1991 Old Farmer's Almanac) 1) THE LOCK MUSEUM (Terryville, Connecticut): People must feel very secure in terryville. There are more locks in the Lock Museum - 18,000 at last count - than there are people in town. Lock history goes back further than you might think: there's a 4,000-year-old Egyptian securing device on display. Examples abound of locks made by the Eagle Lock Company and 40 other companies (earning Terryville the title, "Lock Town of America") that at one time or another busily turned out tumblers, padlocks, mail locks, skeleton keys, even a dog collar lock. For information: 203-589-6359. 2) R.A. KEMP'S MACK TRUCK MUSEUM (Hillsboro, New Hampshire) More than 100 trucks and 26 tractors plus shovels, backhoes, and bulldozers have been brought here and fixed up by Mr. Kemp since 1953. "To me it's just a couple of yahds full of stuff," he reports. "I was a driver, back years ago, and always wanted just one Mack truck to fix up. It just got blown all out of hand..." Lucky for us - just about every variety of Mack, lots of shiny Mack bulldogs, and other trucks are there, and R.A. will let you wander around during daylight just about any day. 603-464-3386. 3) PHILLIPS MUSHROOM MUSEUM (Kennett Square, Pennsylvania) Kennett Square is the mushroom capital of the world, hime of the Phillips Mushroom Farms, which sends out more than 10,000,000 pounds of fresh mushrooms a year! You can learn all about the lore and the mystique of the mushroom at this museum. Did you know that mushrooms can be used as meat substitutes? That there are about 38,000 known species? That ancient Egyptians thought they promoted immortality? Information: 215-388-6082. 4) DAISY BB GUN PLANT AND AIR GUN MUSEUM (Rogers, Arkansas Daisy is the world's largest and oldest manufacturer of nonpowder guns and ammo; the plant spits out over 30,000,000 BBs a day! Daisy guns were so popular in the first half of this century that our success in World War II has been attributed in part to the crack shots who'd been practicing their entire childhoods with Daisy guns. Their museum houses guns dating back to the turn of the century, including their famous "Red Ryder" model, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary and is sure to stir the hearts and trigger fingers of many a grown-up boy and girl. 501-636-1200. 5) VENT HAVEN VENTRILOQUISM MUSEUM (Fort Mitchell, Kentucky) Call anyone here a "dummy" and you'll get roundly scolded (though you won't know who's doing the screeching). "Figure" is the preferred term among the 500 creatures inhabiting the country's only ventriloquial museum. Permanent residents include replicas of Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy, who rose to fame (on - figure this one out - radio) on the lap of "second banana" Edgar Bergen. The museum serves as the site of the annual ventriloquists' convention attracting 1,000 figures and their rides (that's at least 2,000 points of view on everything). 606-341-0461. 6) McILHENNY TABASCO COMPANY (Avery Island, New Iberia, Louisiana) This is an outdoor museum of sorts, and it's truly a hot one. The McIlhenny Company is the one who spices up your life and your Bloody Mary - they're the originators and the country's largest producer of pepper sauce under their trademarked name, Tabasco. The fiery red stuff comes from pepper plants (you'll see them all over Avery Island), which are crushed with salt taken from an almost-hidden but bustling salt mine right there. 318-365-8173. 7) NATIONAL ATOMIC MUSEUM (Albuquerque, New Mexico) At the country's only complete interpretive collection of nuclear weapons (and energy sources), you can learn about their construction, touch the scary things, and see the evolution of bombs. They've gone from looking bulging to bulbous and sleek. Nearby Los Alamos was the site of the country's first bomb test, and Kirtland Field is still the planning site for bombs of the future. 505-845-6670. 8) THE ANGORA GOAT BREEDERS ASSOCIATION MUSEUM (Rocksprings, Texas) The Rocksprings area is the Mohair Capital of the World, producing 90 percent of U.S. mohair, and this is the only museum in America devoted to goats. There are stuffed goats, breeding charts, old pictures, and memorabilia of the annual Mohair Extravaganza in nearby Kerrville - for which an annual Mohair Queen is chosen (that's a better title than "Goat Queen," we guessed). You can enjoy the museum in under a half hour, and it's a great stop if you're at one of the two nearby state parks - Kickapoo Indian Caverns or Devil's Sinkhole. 512-683-3155. 9) INDIAN MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM (Springfield, Massachusetts) The world's oldest motorcycle - and 1885 Daimler - is here, as well as an example of every single model Indian motorcycle ever created from 1901 to 1953. And they all work perfectly. That includes the collapsible, portable Indians manufactured for the Second World War and motorcycles with skis attached. "Indians are quiet", states the owner, perhaps explaining the almost cultlike loyalty they inspire. Come hear them for yourselves: 413-737-2624. 10) JOHN DILLINGER HISTORICAL MUSEUM (Nashville, Indiana) After making off with over $1,000,000 from bank robberies, in 1934 John Dillinger was done in by the two things he said a man should never trust; a woman and an automatic pistol. You can see his blood-soaked death-night trousers here, meet a couple dozen wax replicas of FBI agents, gangsters, even the mysterious "Lady In Red". The gun he whittled to escape fro the "escape-proof" lake County hail and even a re-creation of Dillinger's morgue scene are displayed at this one-of-a-kind place, homage to a Hoosier gone bad. 812-988-7172. 11) BARBED WIRE MUSEUM (LaCrosse, Kansas) It was barbed wire that tamed the West, defining once and for all just whose land and whose cattle were whose. Since LaCrosse is the world's Barbed Wire Capital, it's the perfect spot for this off-the-beaten-path museum that extols the importance (and amazing designs) of barbed wire in our history. Call for hours: 913-222-3116. 12) LIBERACE MUSEUM (Las Vegas, Nevada) (Where else?) All, or most, of what glitters is here at the Liberace Museum. That includes the world's finest collection of rare pianos (Chopin owned one of them), dozens of costumes, including a 175-pound Norwegian Blue Shadow Fox coat with a 16-foot train. Mr. Showmanship's cars are here, one of which is a 1962 Rolls (one of only seven made) completely mirrored in thousands of tiny mosaic tiles and etched with designs of galloping horses. 702-798-5595. 13) THE GRAND GUITAR (Bristol, Tennessee) This museum houses such musical obscurities as a guitar made from an armadillo (a hollowed out, dead armadillo) and a violin built with matchsticks, but that's not all. This place actually _is_ a guitar. Lying on its side, the instrument/museum is 70 feet long, 35 feet high with a curved roof; windows create the "frets" and the round hole. Joe Morrell, curator of the Grand Guitar for the last 25 years, says that, as far as he knows, his is the only guitar-shaped building in the world. Save some time for this place- there's a lot to see, including an old Gibson Electric shaped like the U.S.A., autoharps from the last century, a collection of fiddles shaped like farm tools, and instruments of famous musicians. The oldest radio station between Roanoke and Knoxville will soon be housed right here in the Guitar. 615-968-2277. 14) W.C. HANDY HOME AND MUSEUM (Florence, Alabama) Born in this log cabin in 1873, W.C. left home at 19 and explored the country. He landed in Memphis when he was 36. Ed Crump was running for mayor that years, and W.C. wrote his campaign song for him. The song lasted longer than the mayore and became known as "The Memohis Blues," the first blues number ever preserved in musical notation, earning W.C. Handy the title of "Father of the Blues." The blues will lead you through the museum dedicated to Mr. Handy, where you can see the piano on which he compsed his most famous song, "The St. Louis Blues," also his trumpet and his braille music library (he was blind the last 15 years of his life). 205-760-6434. 15) HOOVER HISTORICAL CENTER (North Canton, Ohio) If you've been looking for domestic heaven, search no further, for here you'll find the most extensive collection of antique vacuum cleaners in the world. In one of the many rooms filled with all types of cleaners, your eye sweeps from left to right to take in style changes, from the first 1908 Hoover that introduced bristles to the "beater bars" to hand- and foot- operated models. There's no admission fee, and outside are herb gardens around which you might picnic. 216-499-0287. 16) THE OLD FAN MUSEUM (Dallas, Texas) Kurt House has a lot of fans. So many (almost 1,000), in fact, that he had to build a museum for them in the birthplace of the American Fan Collectors Club. Kurt's got water-powered fans from New England, belt-driven and steam-operated fans, and funeral parlor fans to blow flies away from the corpse. He's got fans that are 70 years old and "good for another 100." If it's a hot day in Texas, go shoot the breeze with the Fan Man. 214-559-4440. 17) THE POTATO MUSEUM (Washington, D.C.) When all those institutes, monuments, and memorials begin to taste a bit bland, head for the Potato Museum. Besides singing the sweet praises of spuds, this unique stop displays tools, potato postcards and lithographs, and the largest-ever private library of potato books. Call first: 202-544-1558. (Taken from the TMW Archives [1990] Thanks to Snoof!) ÿ