The Engineer, The Gipper and Death Moans
I'm taking another road trip and decided to share the part of it that was POTUS-geek related. :)
School is out and I'm doing my annual running away from home. I'll be taking a longer trip later this summer, but for June, I'm managing to cram in a mini-presidential tour and a new state.
Friday, pretty much the second that school was out, I hopped in my car and drove to glamorous Dixon, Illinois, birthplace of Ronald Reagan. The Comfort Inn that I stayed in has a huge mural in the lobby "The Three Republican Presidents" with Reagan, Lincoln and Grant. It occurred to me later that they were missing one, Barack Obama. But the mural was painted 15 years ago. The Pizza Hut across the street also had a Reagan mural. From my hotel room I had a great view of a corn field, and a Wal-Mart....which I found pretty appropriate.
This morning I went to Reagan's boyhood home. It's in a lovely neighborhood near downtown Dixon. (Which was a huge relief after last summer.....some of the presidential museums I went to then were in pretty sketchy places.) I wound up watching the standard introductory movie in a room by myself. When it was over it turned around, and I saw someone standing in the back, and figured they had snuck in during the movie. I looked up at the face, and it was Ronald Reagan. It was a life-sized cardboard cut-out. Nonetheless, I just about jumped out of my skin and it was a bit of a Haley Joel Osment moment. "I see dead presidents....they smile at me and offer me a jelly bean...."
Usually for presidential historical sites, the staff and volunteers tend to be middle-aged or retirees. The surprising thing with Reagan's boyhood home was everybody I met wasn't even born when Reagan was in office. My tour guide was born in 1991. She was utterly delightful. After the tour she and I wound up gabbing for a half an hour. I found out that people regularly show up from all over the world. Apparently every August they get a huge group from the Philippines. And that the month Reagan died, they got 20,000 visitors, which is how many they usually get in a year. Also that Ron Prescott Reagan showed up to the historical site without announcing who he was.....so my tour guide just started to give him a regular tour until some lady yelled at her. But Michael Reagan apparently makes sure to let the press know every time he shows up.
I was excited at Dixon to see how many young people were excited about American History and Reagan.....and ambivalent because...well...it's Reagan. I'm often ambivalent when it comes to Reagan.
Then I drove down to Tampico to see Reagan's birthplace. He was born in an apartment over a store. The apartment is surprisingly spacious. Just the porch alone is bigger than the whole house where Ulysses Grant was born. It shared a wall with another building so it wasn't uncommon for kids to crawl through the window to the apartment next door.
Under the apartment building was a store and a bank. What was the store is now a gift shop and has various Reagan memorabilia. The bank has quite a few of the original items. We all got a deposit slip with today's date as a souvenir.
One thing that was a bit surreal about Tampico especially, is the cadence of speech reminded me at times of Reagan. I got goosebumps when the volunteer at the birthplace said "Well...thanks for coming..." and for a moment, he sounded just like that man who was on the news every night of my childhood.
After Tampico I made a run for the border and went to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. It is a lovely set up. You can walk to his birthplace, see where his father was a blacksmith, go into his church, as well as the library/museum itself.
One thing that struck me as I walked into the museum was the greeting at the door that says "Welcome Uncommon Students." Hoover made a graduation speech that commented that there is too much focus on "the common man" as you wouldn't want to go to a common doctor, or have a common leader, and that we should strive to be uncommon.
The museum did a good job of showing all of Hoover's accomplishments from his feats in engineering all over the world, his humanitarian work and his presidency. It's interesting to note that his presidency didn't really get any more exhibit space than any other part of his life. Which I think is fair....the man lived to be 90 and he was only president for 4 years.
Only disappointing thing was, I really didn't have much interaction with any other people. Hoover is one of the presidents I'm particularly excited about as I think he accomplished a great deal. (Which you could see at the museum from all the nations sending him thank yous for helping save starving people.) So I was hoping that I could geek out with some Hoover library employee or volunteer about our shared admiration for ole H.H. and maybe get some good book recommendations, but it didn't happen. Although did see someone with the surname Hoover and board of trustees on his name tag make a comment on "Well we can fill that in now because he's no longer with us!" So, think I got to see one of his descendants...Anyway, I'm going to Hoover's boyhood home in Oregon later this summer. Maybe they will be more chatty there.
After that I drove to Des Moines to meet up with my friend Travis. He and his friend Scott (a.k.a. my sherpa guide) will be taking me to Nebraska tomorrow....state number 46! Travis and I like to call Des Moines "Death Moans" as I had a friend who once bragged "I sent a letter to Death Moans, Iowa....and it GOT there!"