No, not Harry Potter!
Okay, I know I’m back from vacation and all, but I still have three more blog entries to post about my trip! What can I say? I’m just trying to extend the good vibes that come along with a vacation. By about the third day — the day we headed to Kansas City — I was completely de-stressed. [Now, of course, I am back to my usual uptight self. LOL!]
When we planned our last minute vacation, the Coach’s main goal was to see the Harry Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, MO. Ol’ Harry has been getting a lot of play in the media these days; he seems to be the exemplar held up by many of the ‘08 candidates. Truman is possibly one of my favorite presidents. Here’s a man who never had a chance to go to college. He wanted to fight in WWI but had such bad eyesight that he actually had to memorize the eye-chart to get into the Guard. He failed at many different business endeavors, but he never seemed to give up. He acted like a regular guy when he left office, trying to resume a normal life in his hometown. Harry wasn’t popular when he was president, but modern Americans should admire his efforts to integrate the armed services and his (failed) attempts to provide nationalized health care. Plus, some of my favorite stories are about the Truman family: how he got so miffed about a bad review of his daughter’s concert and how the first couple broke a bed in the White House. (Who knew?) Granted, I don’t agree with his decision to drop the bomb — but that’s a topic that is hotly debated in the Disenchanted household and in academe at large.
As for the museum: it is the best presidential museum I have visited to date and that includes FDR’s library, Eisenhower’s library, and Carter’s library. I don’t know if the museum was recently redone, but the exhibits were well maintained (not faded like in the Carter museum). The museum actually focused a great deal on Truman’s years in office (unlike the Eisenhower museum which was really too focused on Ike’s military career). I wish that we had more time because I would have liked to have watched the two “decision” scenario films. Unfortunately, museums tend to be opened for five hours on Sunday afternoons and we wanted to go to the National Frontier Trails Museum before it closed. [See here for my discussion of that museum.]
We also visited the Truman Home, which is a completely different site operated by the National Park Service. Unlike the library, the Truman Home was actually open before NOON. The Coach and I showed up around 10:15 a.m., sat through the film, and picked up our tickets to tour the home. Yes, you actually tour the house in small groups — ours had 7.* Our ranger was excellent! He told great stories about the house and about the family. You could tell that he had done his research. Plus, the ranger had met members of the Truman family and talked about how normal they were. The only bad part was the idiot on our tour who kept leaning against the walls and getting his nasty skin oils on everything. I don’t know what part of “Don’t Touch” he didn’t understand. I honestly wanted to bitch slap him. Grrr. Don’t people have any respect for history?
* This reminded me a lot of our trip to Val-Kil. The Coach and I had a ranger all to ourselves when we toured Eleanor’s get-away. I don’t mind paying for the tour when you get that kind of personalized attention.
