GOOD EXPECTATIONS, VARIED RESULTS

Good expectations, not great, are the more reasonable expectations for most people.

Even when you harbor feelings of greatness, who would you tell without sounding like a nut-job?

Yes, I hear you with your, “But Muhammad Ali . . .”

He was ‘The Greatest’ and proved it over an over, until he became what all great fighter become when they stay in the fight game too long:

A punching bag, a resume builder, a has-been.

How do you stick with goodness, instead of greatness, avoid the knockout punishment, and still feel good about it?

The top picture shows former General and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant at his writing desk working on his memoirs.

This man has been to highest peeks, the Union general credited with winning the Civil War, then winning two terms as President.

Like General Eisenhower after WWII who also served two terms as president, Grant was the king of the castle in his day.

His success in public life lay in stark contrast to the uneven results in his private life where worked to find a good fit.

It was throat cancer that put him at his writing desk, hurrying to finish his book in six months, burdened with great expectations of high sales.

 

After retiring from the presidency, Grant’s long history of financial struggles continued.

He joined a financial firm, which went bankrupt, and then learned he was suffering from throat cancer in late 1884.

He worked furiously to write his memoirs to pay off his debts and provide for his family.

These memoirs, completed just before he died on July 23, 1885, earned nearly $450,000.

Grant’s autobiography was lauded for its lucid prose and compelling story.

Grant argued that the Mexican-American War and the expansion of slavery ultimately drove the country toward civil war.

It is still regarded as one of the best first-hand accounts of the Civil War.

 

Figure in the rounded up numbers, and inflation between 1885 and 2025, and Grant’s work exceeded every possible expectation.

 

$500,000 in 1884 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $16,482,040.82 today, an increase of $15,982,040.82 over 141 years.

The dollar had an average inflation rate of 2.51% per year between 1884 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 3,196.41%.

 

Grant guided the Union to victory, led the nation for eight years, and left his family $16.5 million on the way out?

We should all be so fortunate.

Ulysses and I have much in common.

I am a former Army Pfc, had neck cancer,  a writer, and a blog worth $1.99 for the family after I’m gone.

It’s like we’re twins.

 

Varied Results For Uneven Effort

This is former General and President Dwight David Eisenhower.

I like Ike.

He was the President when I was born, so I’ve got that going for me.

Before that he was a college president at Columbia.

Before that he was the Supreme Commander Of The Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.

The hand holding the bottle is the hand of the man who signed off on D-Day 1944, the Allied invasion of Europe to save the civilized world from death camps and racial profiling.

You could say he’s had his share of big jobs.

 

After the war ended in Europe, he served as military governor of the American-occupied zone of Germany (1945), Army Chief of Staff (1945–1948), president of Columbia University (1948–1953), and as the first supreme commander of NATO (1951–1952).

 

We have more in common than the name David.

Again, we’re both Army vets like Grant and I, college educated, held jobs in delivery, and oversaw large collections of important material.

I was a museum Collections Manager, which was an uphill battle every day with a staff holding diverse interests.

The battles resulted in better collections delivering more learning, the main job of a museum.

It was a crack team for a long time, which are good expectations for archival work preserving cultural artifacts.

 

Amateur American History Museum Mistake

I agree with Orwell, things do change, not always for the better, and not always for the benefit of the people.

During WWII, Central Europe got rolled over by Germany early, and Russia later.

The German occupation lasted from 1939’s invasion of Poland, after rolling into neighboring nations earlier, to 1945.

The Russian occupation ran from 1945 to 1989.

It was during the German occupation that museums were held to a wide-ranging review of exhibitions, materials, and operations.

Those reviews resulted in plunder and loss, and the start of Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section of the Allies.

 

When Stout arrived there on May 21, 1945, shortly after hostilities ended, he chronicled the contents based on Nazi records:

6,577 paintings, 2,300 drawings or watercolors, 954 prints, 137 pieces of sculpture, 129 pieces of arms and armor, 79 baskets of objects, 484 cases of objects thought to be archives, 78 pieces of furniture, 122 tapestries, 1,200-1,700 cases apparently books or similar, and 283 cases contents completely unknown.

The Soviets had “Trophy Brigades” whose job was to plunder enemy treasure (it’s estimated they stole millions of objects, including Old Master drawings, paintings, and books).

 

Museum men are different than history folks.

Everyone’s a family historian, a history buff, history collector, history traveler.

History folks interpret the past with novels, monograms, and compilations of writings from any particular era.

Good teachers use it all, from art work, literature, to serious research from primary sources.

Museum men use a different set of parameters.

What is it; what is it made of; what is it used for.

Then it’s all about authenticity. Is it the real deal, or a fake.

Modern day Monuments Men know their role in reviewing their institutions holdings at the behest of an amateur historian.

Show the shiny stuff.

 

Good Museum Men Know

A good museum forces the question of ‘what will our species look back on from our time here?’

With good storage there’s a chance some evidence, some historical debris, will be around to further the discussion.

Captain U.S. Grant’s chair when he was stationed in the Pacific Northwest? A claymation figure of Mark Twain from the Will Vinton studio? A heart valve invented by Albert Starr?

Like golf critics who’d try to subdivide every course from Augusta to Pebble Beach, museum critics would like to see more priceless material on the open market.

Short of that they’d settle for the open Black Market.

 

PS: Museums are always vulnerable to cultural shifts and unusually prepared when an official moron shows up representing a clueless boob.

 

PSS: My museum came under review from the new governor’s wife after he won his election. She and her policeman-driver looked things over. “Oh, that’s nice. I like the shape. I need more color in the office. Is that desk available?”

 

Back then, in harmony with state funding, the song was, “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Did they see everything?

Only museum men see everything.