When I signed up for this event, I didn’t really know what it was. (I still don’t actually know the total history of why there’s a Dominguez Adobe Museum…)
But since I’d never been to this place, so I thought why not try to expand my mind a little while helping.
When I got there, there wasn’t a ton to do. So, first I tried to get my picture taken with Santa… but he wouldn’t let me! He thought it was “inappropriate” for a young woman to sit on his lap? (I saw other male adults do it… I’ll just leave that there, since I don’t know what to say about that.)
I also took one of the tours around the adobe. We learned about chamber pots and horse-drawn ambulances. We were reminded that if we thought it took a long time to get down there from L.A. now, we should’ve tried back then without automobiles!
There was indeed a little living history exhibit where actresses spoke as the daughters of the family. They were so into it. It was pretty cute.
I also learned about the first woman to parachute out of a plane – Tiny Broadwick. She sounded interesting, and she had various accomplishments. I was a little surprised I’d never heard of her. But now I have!
When it came time to do actual volunteering stuff, there wasn’t much… I helped bring an extension cord out to the tree so they could light it. And I helped clean up all the food at the end of the night.
One thing I did do that didn’t actually seem to help anything, but still made me pretty proud, was… There was this little fake light that was battery operated. And the on/off switch on the bottom had broken. So no one could figure out how to turn it off. A woman was walking around saying, “I’ll give you $100 if you can turn this off” to people.
(There was not actually a monetary reward, in case you’re wondering.)
Person after person couldn’t turn it off. I love challenges and puzzles. So, I took a crack at it. I figured that even though the button wasn’t there, if I could reach something down in the hole it made to turn the mechanism the same way the button would have, then I could get it to turn off.
I looked around in the little kitchen area, and found some of those tiny, thin straws. I reached up and grabbed one. I then stuck it in the light, found where I could click the mechanism, and boom! The light went off.
Aurora De Lucia – problem solver.