Hey, remember when we drove five hours out of our way to see an arm?  Or maybe not an arm, but at least an arm grave and possibly an arm ghost?

Well, you could hardly expect me to pass up the opportunity to see the saw that cut that arm off, could you?  No, right? 

 Of course right.

That's how Monica and I ended up at The Country Doctor Museum last month.


And the best part about it was that we didn't even have to drive five hours out of our way.

The worst part about it was that we went to the Country Doctor Museum on recommendation of this website, and when we finally got there, we looked everywhere for the Arm Saw and then when we couldn't find it, we asked where the Arm Saw was and everyone was all, "Uuuuuuhh, saywhat?"  

So finally we asked the proper combination of people and found out that they used to claim that this,



was the saw that cut off Stonewall Jackson's arm, but then somewhere along the way, someone pointed out that while they knew that this was A saw that belonged to one of Stonewall Jackson's doctors, Hunter McGuire, they did not, in fact, know that it was THE saw that cut off the arm and while they did know that Hunter McGuire was known to be at the Battle of Chancellorsville, they weren't even completely sure that he was the surgeon who did the arm cutting.  So maybe it was THE saw, maybe it wasn't. 

Provenance!

Aside: A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers brought me a list of "cool words and phrases" he had written out and wanted to use in the marketing materials we were creating for an event and he stood in my office door reading them:

 "Be in it to win it.
"Take care of you.
"Your destination for education."

He read off the long list of items he'd written down and then ended by saying, 

"Provenance."

Me: "Provenance?"

Him:  "Provenance!"

 Me: "Been watching a lot of Antiques Roadshow lately, have we?"

 Him: "How did you know?!?"

 Me: "I'll make a deal with you.  If you can use it in a sentence, I'll find a way to put that word in the document we're working on."

 Him: "Uh... .... Come and get your provenance?"

Me: "Nope."

Him: "Be in it to win it!"

 /digression

 Even though Monica and I weren't able to see the actual saw that cut off Stonewall Jackson's actual arm, we did make friends with a Civil War re-enactor who specialized in medical treatment of the era.



 Which was pretty good, even without the provenance.