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Live History Days entertain, educate

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POLSON — Dakota Johannemann, about 11, from Indiana, had a smile that wouldn’t quit as he rode with Jamie Shepard in the Mash military Jeep at Live History Days at the Miracle of America Museum. 

While it’s heaven for kids interested in tractors, cars, planes, helicopters, sawmills, tanks and trains, and that’s all kids, the Miracle of America Museum also has history for grown-ups. And during Live History Days, Gil Mangels outdoes himself. 

As well as the regular exhibits — guns, motorcycles, music, quilts, beadwork, cars, a Pearl Harbor display — exhibitors come in to make parts of the museum come to life. 

A blacksmith got the forge going in the blacksmith shop. The twang of the saw cutting through logs at the sawmill competed with musicians playing the fiddle and piano in the museum’s meeting room. A schoolteacher greeted visitors in the Green Mountain schoolhouse. 

Decoy carver Dick Schieke had a shady spot to practice his art. Before moving to Polson 15 years ago, he and his family lived in Maryland for most of his life, which is waterfowl and duck hunting country. Schieke wanted to become a waterfowl and decoy collector but found that was an expensive hobby. He decided to learn to carve, and he’s progressed so he’s proud of his work. Schieke likes to use white cedar to carve, a wood found more on the east coast than in the west. He answered questions from passers-by about his art. 

Past Schieke’s decoys and around the corner was another of the popular attractions, a tennis ball cannon. Mangels put a liner in a recoil-less rifle and mounted it on a Vietnam era mule, a sort of cart. The cannon fires tennis balls at a target against dirt bank. 

Students from Kicking Horse Job Corps were intrigued the cannon and got to fire it. 

The cannon didn’t interest Leroy Burland, age 2, but the tractors did. The orange tractor was bigger, but it didn’t have a seat. Just as he got settled on a Ford tractor, along came the Thomas the Tank train and lured him into its cars.

Kaitlynne and Tristan Clairmont rode on a tank, and their dad, who served in Afghanistan, watched as Tristan swung the machine gun around the turret.  

Although Mangels was not happy with the glut of entertainment in the Mission Valley, he did say the Miracle of America Museum had a good crowd for Live History Days. 

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