Abilene

This entry is another trip back in time to the 2017 road trip my youngest and I took that summer. After touring Harry Truman's library in Independence, MO, we crossed over into Kansa for a short trip to Abilene. Why Abilene? Well, we had some geocaching to do, plus some more history, since Abilene is where Dwight D. Eisenhower's Presidential Library is located. It's also the northern terminus for the Texas Cattle Trail. We learned that while finding a virtual geocache at the boulder that marked the terminus of the trail in the middle of town. After checking in to our motel, we just sat around as we were going to visit the library the next day. My youngest hung out in the room and I found some nearby geocaches and then we called it a night.

The next morning we drove south a couple of miles to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum and toured both his boyhood home and then later in the morning the library and museum dedicated to his presidency. Eisenhower's house was enjoyable, but unfortunately, due to safety standards we weren't able to go upstairs to visit the upper rooms as the foundation established originally didn't want to have to alter the house in any way. Fire codes would have necessitated adding an outside fire escape on the upper floor and that was out of the question, so no one was allowed upstairs. It was still interesting as to what we saw. The family bible was on display and it had the birth record of Eisenhower displayed.

Following our tour, we headed over to the museum to learn about the life of our 34th president. It should be noted that this museum was originally operated by the Friends of Eisenhower and so did not have any Government influence at first. Eventually, the National Archives and Records Administration took over the library. Because of its origins, the library had a certain slant and there didn't seem to be a balance approach to the coverage of Eisenhower. Everything we saw was hued in a way to put Eisenhower in a positive light, contrary to what we had seen the day before at the Truman museum. Truman's was operated by the National Archives from the get go and presented, in my opinion, a much more balanced approach to Truman.

I was very pleased with the amount of artifacts from Eisenhower's life, including the Emmy he won for his extensive use of television during his presidency (thus far, he's the only president to win an Emmy). We were able to see his cars, his military uniforms, his cadet hat from West Point, plus a golf card for a round of golf with Ben Hogan, Paul Helms and George Allen. Hogan won the round straight up, but when you calculate the handicaps in, the president actually won the round.

The only thing I found curious about the library in general was the almost total lack of any mention of his wife Mamie at the library. One room had some artifacts, but for the most part, it was almost as if she was just a footnote on his historical journey through life. Maybe that's the way it was, but the other presidential libraries I've toured, the First Ladies were definitely a part of the history. Mamie didn't seem to be much of an influence in his life at all.

Once we'd toured the museum proper, we then walked across the ground and paid our respects at the graves of the President and First Lady. From there, it was time to drive the length of Kansas, heading to the Mecca of all geocachers, the oldest active geocache in the world.

Independence

This post title could mean a variety of things, but it is actually the name of the town we spent the night in on July 4th, 2017 on our 16 day road trip to Wisconsin and back. The timing couldn't have worked out more perfectly than it did. As noted in my last entry, we got into town late in the afternoon after driving across the state of Missouri. We had time to check into the motel, grab a bite to eat and then wander around a little bit watching different fireworks displays that were set up in different parts of town. It was a nice way to spend our 4th of July. 

We spent the better part of the next day touring the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, which includes the home he and his wife spent most of their married life in when he wasn't in Washington D.C. We also toured the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library. We knew time wasn't going to be a problem today since our next stop was not a very long drive into Kansas.

Our first stop was the visitors center of the Harry S. Truman NHS for information and tickets to tour his home. We walked through the small museum and then wandered over to the historic courthouse. On the back side of the courthouse, we spotted a marker indicating the beginning of the Oregon Trail. By the time we'd gathered in some of the history of the area, it was time for our tour of Truman's house, so we walked the four or five blocks over to the house and took the tour.

Truman's house was built by his wife's grandfather and he and Bess Truman lived there for their entire married life from 1919 until his death in 1972. This was the "summer White House" during the time he was President of the United States from 1945 until 1953 and where he retired to after serving as our commander in chief. Touring the home, you get a real feeling as to how much of a down to earth kind of guy Truman was, not a whole lot of presidential trappings, just an average guy living out the best way he could.

Following our tour of the house, we then walked back over to the visitors center. That's when I saw some fake news, but this was really fake news. The visitors center had an actual print of the famous Chicago Tribune newspaper headline from November 1948, when they famously predicted that Thomas Dewey would defeat Truman based upon phone samplings they'd taken over the past several days. I inquired as to whether this was genuine, or a printed up copy of the paper and was assured that it was genuine. I also learned that the newspaper will not print any copies of that particular newspaper, because it is wrong and they will not be a part of printing things that aren't truthful. The interesting thing about this is, that it literally is fake news, because it has been proven incorrect, unlike a lot of other news stories that are just called fake news because someone doesn't like the coverage. Faulty polling by the Tribune caused the error, they owned up to the error, didn't double down on their error and admitted they were wrong and later printed a retraction.

Following our visit to the visitors center, we then hopped back into the Jeep and drove over to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. The museum and library I found very refreshing and much different than the Lincoln Library that we'd visited a couple of days earlier. While Lincoln's Library was very high tech, I felt that it lacked a lot of memorabilia that one would expect from a presidential library.

The presidential library I've visited the most, mainly because it's the closest to where I live is Richard Nixon's library. Because Nixon's library was created through private funds and through organizations like "Friends of Nixon" I felt that there were many aspects of Nixon's life that got whitewashed in the telling, most notably, Watergate. You don't get that at the Truman library.

On the side of Truman's library is a quote by Harry Truman which reads, "The Truth is all I want for History." Truman felt that a presidential library should reflect the history of the time, the truth of the time, be it good or bad. There was an interactive exhibit regarding the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Visitors could weigh in with their opinion on whether it was right or wrong. Just wandering through the museum, I felt that the exhibits overall, gave a very balanced detail of his time as President and as a human being, complete with all the frailties that come with being human. It wasn't whitewashed at all.

The last place we visited after walking through the entire museum was the garden and then over to President Truman's gravesite which is on the grounds of the library. We paid our respects to a great man, then got back in the Jeep and headed west into Kansas.