The Wilber D. May Museum

Field trips were always exciting, whether it was kindergarten or senior year of high school. The one that always fascinated and scared me at the same time was the May Museum.

It was never really explained to us kids who Mr. May was, or why he had this museum. Maybe it was explained, but we sure weren’t listening. The museum consisted of animals that had gone through that wonderful activity known as taxidermy. There were dead animals in every exhibit, even the ones that were just a little scene from his living room. In fact it was his living room that was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen.

Everything was made of some kind of animal. The lampshades hung off of hooves of zebras, even the couch was being suspended in air by hooves of sheep and horses. This man was obviously a hunter. Two tusks surround the fireplace, and above the mantel is the head of a giant hippo. The walls are covered in animal heads from every end of the earth: tigers, antelope, buffalo, zebras, rhinos, and even hyenas. Flattened bobcats were used as headrests on one of the couches. There were antlers, antlers everywhere. And that was just one room.

There were individual displays of tigers, a giraffe, an entire gathering of deer. But the one that to this day I still will not get close to, the polar bear. One of the first visits I took there put me off of that bear forever. A bunch of boys were joking around and banging on the glass that separated the bear and the group. They hit it so hard that the bear began to rock back and forth, and nearly came crashing through the pane, it’s glass eyes cold and frightening. From then on the entire place was haunted to me. Down to the stuffed monkeys in the rafters it had me spooked. The creepiest thing about this place, though, is the actual shrunken head. It might very well one of the last. How many people can say they have seen a real shrunken head?

Because it had me spooked, it put me off the entire ‘May Center’ altogether. Because you see there was more than just the May Museum, but the ‘Great Basin Adventure’ as well. In the center was what looked like a miniature version of the mountain in Disneyland. Inside was a mine, and it had mannequins of miners that talked, and lit up when you were passing by. They cried, “Fire in the hole!” in the darkness of the cave, and then lit up to show you the surprised mannequin about to be blown up by the explosives. It scared me to death. I refused to go in there, and only liked the log flume ride, which was only one tiny drop into the water. It was nothing to write home about.
But that, my friend, is what fuels my fear of mannequins and taxidermied animals.