Robert Crown Center
On a family vacation back in the seventies, we made a side trip to visit the "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" museum. I don't remember which location or even the specific year but I can tell you all about what I saw inside - there were siamese twins, a two-headed calf, and all manner of freaks and sword-swallowers. Upon leaving, we took a pamphlet with us that featured a life-sized figure of an asian man with two pupils in each eye. I was terrified of this pamphlet and was always conscious of where it was in the car. However, nothing that I witnessed at the Ripley's museum disturbed me as much as what was routinely on display at the Robert Crown Center.
For those who aren't familiar, this was a facility designed to teach young people about sex education. It was the go-to field trip destination for students of a particular age. We just knew it as the place you went to learn about boobs and weiners. Sex education is a good thing and should be taught, but maybe in a less crowded and embarrassing setting. When our rowdy bus pulled up and the doors folded open, stress filled the air as the reality of the situation finally hit us. We robotically marched toward the entrance.
One of the few features that I can remember clearly about the lobby was a giant model of the human ear that you could explore by walking around and through. I distinctly recall doing that. One other thing that I can absolutely recall was strolling into a theater of some kind where they were showing a movie about "our changing bodies", complete with weird animation showing exactly how our bodies will be changing. Had I known that the permission slip my parents signed was going to be my ticket to this piece of cinema, I never would've given it to them. I stumbled out of the theater trying to un-see what I'd just witnessed and decided to just walk around the inner ear until it was time to go back to the school. The bus was a lot quieter on the return trip as we all tried to unpack what the hell it was that we had just experienced.
The phrase "Robert Crown" has become a kind of shorthand that we use in our family to avoid saying something uncomfortable. For example, as an adult, whenever I had to delicately inform my youngest son what was meant by a comment regarding sex on a TV show or a movie, I would say something like, "Oh, she just wants to get all 'Robert Crown' with that guy". He has heard my tragic tale and knows exactly what is meant by this. Even now, when we are watching a show and an awkward sex scene occurs, I'll get up to grab a snack and say, "Um, I'm going to go walk around the inner ear for a while."
