Old, In A Significant Way.

I've found several, 'New Favorite Places' in the last few weeks. I'll be writing about some of them here. New favorite places are like new relationships.

You go through several stages:

• The awe stage where the very thought of them or there amazes you.
• The discovery stage where everything is new and fun and interesting.
• The familiarity stage, where all that was amazing in discovery is boring or annoying.
• The resentment stage. That's the stage where you mentally scream, “THERE AGAIN?!?!?!”.

But I digress.

This past weekend I visited the InfoAge Museum. Let me back up and start from the beginning. The girls and I went to a computer show this past spring. It was at an old air force base in Wall Township, NJ, that was know as Camp Evans. It has been converted into a museum complex and is currently comprised of the NJ Radio and Technology Museum, The Vintage Computer Museum, The Shipwreck Museum and the Military History Museum. We enjoyed the museums (collectively known as InfoAge) so much, that we vowed to return often. Well summer came and we ended up in other places and locales. I almost forgot about the museum complex. If it weren't for the old antique radios in my mom's garage, the fond museum moments probably would have faded into a memory box in the back of my mind. Luckily for me, they didn't.

I decided to go on the weekend (they are only open Sundays from 1 – 5p.m.) myself and find out about donating some old radios and Macintosh computers. After stopping at my mom's to get makes and model numbers, I got a late start to InfoAge. The museums here are amazingly different then most for two reasons.

First there is no paid staff, just volunteers who give of their time, labor and knowledge. The exhibits are all created with love and passion for their topics, and it shows. That being said, the volunteers are the soul of the exhibits. They are more than happy to talk to the visitors and pass their knowledge to those who are lucky enough to be in earshot.

Second, the museum is a optional donation museum. There is no fee, no embezzlement of large amounts of money (Yeah, You, NYC. Museum of Natural History.) just whatever someone can afford or feels the museum is worth. There is also membership but once again, for a reasonable rate.

When I arrived at the museum, a volunteer greeted me and I began my trek at the Vintage Computer Museum. The machines there range from a Univac to an original Macintosh and everything (remember TeleTypes) in between. This museum is a chronicle of my life. If I haven't used these machines, I've studied them. I remember my seven year old self, playing on an ICS machine(I believe, the first color personal computer) and using eight track 'datasettes' to store information. I see my ten year old self programming my Timex Sinclair and the astonishment at my own digital creations. I laugh at my fourteen year old self, working in my dad's office on Tandems and Digitals. I look with pride on my nineteen year old self, at my first real job, programming on a McDonald Douglas. Now my forty one year old self stares in wonderment at a Burroughs card sorting table and feels at home amongst the toggle switches of a Digital Main Frame. I lived this history and now feel old in a significant way.

Radar Tube Used at Normandy

Infrared Jammer

The Shipwreck museum was closed, so I continued to the Military History Museum. This museum makes me proud to be an American and is Lizzy's favorite stop in the complex. I looked in amazement at the early radar; I stared in wonderment at an infrared jammer; I read in awe of a force field used in wars before I was born and I reach a place where it all comes to miniature life, the model room. Cases filled with scale weapons, soldiers and scenes of wars gone by. While staring at replicas of tanks and transports, the real exhibit began. The volunteer who painstakingly assembled all of the models and set up all of the displays came over and began talking to me. He commented about remembering the girls from the computer show; explains the scenes; shows me all of the new items that have been added. He is rightfully proud of the collection. I think of the way Lizzy went from case to case and scene to scene, wide eyed. She listened to the volunteer eager to absorb a history as distant to her, as The Civil War is to me.

It was five minutes to closing when I got to the radio museum. Seeing me rushing, the volunteers told me to take my time, evident that they were happy to share this amazing place. Marconi, in 1914 used this building as the first transatlantic radio receiver site. The museums slogan is, “...radio from before spark to beyond cellphones.”. As I look at the various tubes, radio equipment, early tvs and an actual communications satellite, I believe they are on the right track. Surprisingly everything works, except for maybe the satellite.

Wow, I could keep writing about this place, but the point of this post was to get people to go to the museum, not see it through me. There is, literally, something there for everyone. The kids and I will be going back this weekend and I plan on becoming a lifetime member.

If you are in N.J. And want to visit a truly amazing place go to the InfoAge Complex in Wall.

For information about the museum, you can visit their website at http://www.infoage.org/