Baltimore may have the Tattoo Museum, but only in Madison, WI, will you find the roadkill museum. In the basement of a funeral home no less.
The article is a hoot. Not only did some guy stuff a lot of dead squirrels and chipmunks, he dressed them up and gave them all little dioramas to play in. A Western Bar where squirrels drink beer, and even 2 albino squirrels jetting along in a pink Barbiemobile. Even funnier is the description of the museum's curator, an 85 year old funeral director.
"In a lot of Upper Midwest regions, there is a whole genre of museum bars and other places where there are tableaus of taxidermy. Some are similar to dogs playing poker in velvet paintings. The whole idea is animals personified doing things people in the North Woods would be doing; drinking, playing poker. Taxidermists try to outdo each other with more and more elaborate scenes."
""Many times kids are upstairs crying because they've lost grandma or grandpa," Sanfillippo explained during a tour of the museum. "Then I take them down here. You can't get them out of here. The families are upstairs and they say, 'Where did our kids go?' "
But my favorite quote might be: "The museum also has the best collection of stuffed albino squirrels I suppose I have ever seen."
Yeah - nothing like stating the obvious. Because, you know, there are just so many stuffed albino squirrel exhibits around these days.
I got an error message, hope this doesn't post twice... There is this place (http://www.mum.org/), which is in Maryland also (albeit closer to DC)and, I believe, was in someone's basement as well. (no, I never went. Don't ask me how I know about it. Please.)
I got an error message, hope this doesn't post twice...
There is this place (http://www.mum.org/), which is in Maryland also (albeit closer to DC)and, I believe, was in someone's basement as well. (no, I never went. Don't ask me how I know about it. Please.)