Let's go to this weird ray gun.

It looks like it's from the Ghostbusters.

Yeah, the Ghostbusters used it.

We're at the History Colorado Center, where I'm going deep into our archival vault, selecting ten artifacts from History Colorados collection of more than 15 million items.

Nixon eats lettuce.

What do you think that means?

Lettuce find out.

Today, we're challenging two contestants to see if they can draw the connections between these pieces of Colorado history.

Welcome to The Vault.

Today, we're playing with Andrew Novick and Marissa Poppens.

Welcome, you two.

Marissa, I understand you didnt grow up in Colorado, - but you got here as quick as you could.

- I did.

All right, you two maybe connect over art.

Andrew, you're an electrical engineer by day, but artist and musician by night.

And Marissa, you're a film buff?

We know each other a lot through The Denver Film Festival, the Sie FilmCenter.

Terrific.

Terrific.

Have you seen any good Colorado history movies you think are going to help you here today?

- Well see.

- All right, well lets check out what is in The Vault today.

In front of you are ten artifacts, and I want you to find the connections between them.

The artifacts on the table can be arranged into three sets, with the three items in each set all connected by a common theme.

One of the items in front of you is a decoy that doesn't belong with any set, so choose carefully.

You can start by inspecting each item, and because we are nice here at The Vault, I'll give you one hint on any item that you would like it on.

Once you've had a chance to look them over, I will give you 90 seconds to make your connections on the game board here.

Sound good?

- Sounds great.

- Alright, go take a look.

- Alright.

- Man.

Okay.

- Some kind of tool to, like, dig in the dirt.

- Yeah.

- Maybe plant some seeds.

- Farming, planting, - Or excavate.

- Yeah, okay.

Well, that one seems kind of easy.

I don't know how it relates, but let's go to this weird ray gun thing.

It measures something with the gauge over here.

Oh, what does it say?

Oh, can you see what the units are on there?

I can't.

Precision Radiation Instruments, Inc.

- Million rads per hour, possibl - Okay.

Kind of looks like a knife.

It's some kind of crank.

Like this is, you spin that probably.

- Do you think its a fishing reel?

- Fishing reel, maybe.

I think it's probably a drill.

Yeah, because it looks like you put a drill bit in there.

You can like [churning sound].

Nixon eats lettuce.

Is that ... is that like a pro Nixon thing?

- Or is it an anti-Nixon thing?

- I dont know.

Is lettuce cool or is it not cool?

- I have no idea.

- Lettuce find out.

Cocaine hydrochloride for making extemporaneous solutions.

Poison soluble tablets.

Pest control of some sort?

I don't know.

Okay, what about this Landsverk Dosimeter.

Dosimeter would be something that measures radiation.

I know about this one.

This looks like it's from the Ghostbusters.

Yeah, the Ghostbusters used it.

Definitely measures something.

So I think that's ... - That's probably radiation too.

- Okay.

I actually have something that looks - very much like this at my house.

- There you go.

Yeah, yeah.

Hospital shared services.

Suction.

Ether.

It goes up to 30, but there's no units.

Bad meter, bad meter.

Oh, maybe it's like the dentist when they like for sucking out the saliva on stuff.

Yeah, because those guys have a suction thing.

Beret, is there any particular group about, like, a brown beret?

Maybe an Acorn Club?

Because it kinda looks like an acorn.

With the face, it's like the Acorn Mafia.

Yeah.

Right.

All right.

You know this one?

I know a little bit about this.

I don't know anything about Schroeder, no.

- Wow.

- Shroeder, she wins.

Yeah.

Pat Schroeder.

- Okay.

- Yeah, she ... She was state representative, I think.

Okay, yeah, probably in the 80s.

Let's get a clue on something.

- You think we should get a clue - Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

What do you think?

- Look, I'm gonna go with the beret.

- Okay.

Yeah, we would like a help on the beret.

Well, it is a brown beret.

And if you showed up at an event in the 60s and saw people wearing these, you would know you were in safe hands.

Wow.

- Okay.

- Okay.

All right, you ready?

Let's go.

- Ready.

Alright.

- Okay.

I have a good feeling about you two.

I'm going to put 90 seconds on the clock, starting now.

- We got this.

- Alright.

I think.

The lettuce pin or button, Schroeder, and the beret.

Alright.

- And those are political related?

- Political.

Yes.

Politics or something.

[Inaudible] Okay, alright.

All right, let's do these.

Those three are radiation ones - because I'm pretty confident about that.

- Likewise.

So we have radiation meter, dosimeter, and - radiation measurement gun.

- Yes.

And we read rads per hour or something like that.

- So we'll say — - Let's say ... Earth testing.

I just say radiation.

Okay.

- Radiation ... - Um, measurement or something.

Okay.

And this one, I had — I have a thought on this one, let me see what you think.

Okay.

If this is a dental thing, and this is a drill, - that could be dental, - That's true.

and then the cocaine is like - the ... whatever the numbing ... dental — - Numbing agent.

- I like that.

- And then the hoe is — - Nothing, that's a decoy.

- Nothing, okay.

Do you want to do it?

You think that's good?

- 30 seconds, guys.

- Okay.

Oh, we got we got this.

- We got it.

- All right.

Dental — dental ... accessories, dental tools, something like that.

Alright.

- Okay.

You feel good?

- Yes.

Alright.

Pencils down.

Pencils down, alright.

Okay.

Well done.

That was decisive.

Tell me a little bit about what you've done here.

Tell me about your first set, Andrew.

Okay, so we have the pin, which is Nixon.

I don't know what the lettuce has to do with anything, but it sounds kind of funny.

Pat Schroeder, I know, as a former politician in Denver.

And then — thank with your help — the beret sounded like a 60s, some kind of political thing.

So we picked politics as our umbrella term for that one.

Alright, alright, Marissa, tell me about the second set here.

Yeah, so the second set, we have the yellow device that looks like it's from the Ghostbusters, measuring radiation somehow.

The second device is also kind of a measurement device that also, I think lights up.

Maybe.

And the third one, as well, measures something.

- So radiation measurement.

- Yeah.

Radiation.

That's what it says right there.

Alright.

Sounds good.

Andrew, How about that third set?

So the first thing, when I started — when I saw those hoses ... I thought it kind of looked like a dental thing.

And then we saw the ether and the suction.

And then Marissa mentioned, like, suction as, like, a dental thing.

So we were kind of honing in on that.

The cocaine pills, we were just thinking drug related at first, but then in the dental — when our ideas with the dental came in, then it would be like to numb the pain.

And then this drill, which we were thinking like it could be like drill a tooth hole and so dental.

Okay.

And that leaves the hoe you think is the decoy, Marissa.

Yeah, I think that's the decoy.

Why doesn't a hoe fit here?

I mean, it's tempting to pick the hoe with the radiation measurement devices because you have to, like, dig some soil up to get measurements and whatnot.

But at the same time, it these three items are measurement instruments.

So we're going to stick with — Yeah, kind of process of elimination.

Like the hoe, just after everything said and done, we — there was no room.

One of these things doesn't fit.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Uh huh.

Well are you ready to see - how you did?

- Can't wait to see — - Yes.

Okay, let's have the big reveal.

Okay.

Movement-ivo.

- Movement — - El Movimiento.

El Movimiento.

- Okay, so political movement.

- So, you you were right, yes.

There were multiple items having to do with politics on the table, but these three items have to do with a very specific political movement.

The Chicano Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and 70s here in Colorado and throughout the country.

The brown berets that you asked about were worn by people who were working security at events.

But also the Brown Berets were a group that made sure that their communities were being taken care of.

So Nixon eats lettuce is a little bit like saying Nixon skis in jeans.

It's a reference to the United Farm Workers boycott against non-unionized lettuce.

It came out that Nixon's Defense Department had increased its orders of lettuce during the boycott.

So the button was a way of sort of twisting the knife satirically.

- Okay.

- The hoe is a short handled hoe used by migrant farm workers.

They called it el cortito.

In order to use that hoe to, for instance, weed a lettuce field, you had to stay bent over ten hours a day.

It was torturous work and was eventually banned in most places where it was used.

And so it was really it was it came to be seen as an instrument of torment by these farm workers.

You did correctly identify that there were three instruments related to radiation on the table.

Colorado was the site of much of the uranium that was produced during the Cold War.

Prospectors looking for that uranium would use a scintillator like the one there that could detect radiation coming out of the ground.

And then these ... the yellow ones, the Geiger counter and the dosimeter were really something that you might find in a bomb shelter.

If there were a nuclear attack, the Geiger counter and the dosimeter would help you understand how much radiation was in the air, how much you had been exposed to.

And then the third category here, you did match it up right.

These are not, however, just dental instruments.

The anesthesiology machine there belonged to Doctor Stanley Biber, a doctor in Trinidad who really pioneered gender confirmation surgeries - beginning — - Wow.

- in the late 60s.

[Inaudible] The drill was for either neurological surgery, neurosurgery, going through the skull, or if you needed to set a pin in a broken bone, you could drill in with it.

It's a hand-cranked drill.

And the the cocaine — Cocaine was something of a miracle drug.

It was being prescribed in the late 1800s for just all manner of things, including anesthetic, to numb the sight of a procedure.

Wow.

We were on the right track.

You were on the right track.

And then, of course, Pat Schroeder, one of the first women in Congress elected from Denver in 1972 and served until 1997.

- Okay.

- Wow.

- We didn't do too bad.

- You did great.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

Is there anything up here that surprised you?

- Caught you off guard?

- The El Movimiento one.

That's really fascinating.

I want to find out more about that.

Yeah, I was at a museum recently in the Netherlands, but it was about Chicano movements and posters, and they had a bunch of lettuce.

I was like, darn, I should've — - Nixon eats lettuce.

- drawn the connection.

Yeah.

Colorado's history is full of surprising connections.

And as we turn 150 this year, it's more important than ever that museums like ours are preserving and protecting artifacts like these.

That way, we can continue making connections for the next 150 years.

Alright, well, thank you for playing today.

And thank you for joining us in The Vault.

We'll see you next time.

Great job.

Thank you.

- Awesome.

Thanks.

- Yeah.

Let's look at this ... To learn more about these objects and some other cool artifacts, visit rmpbs.org/thevault or go visit your local history museum.