Thanksgiving Day and Harry Truman

Independence, Missouri, Home of Harry Truman, 33rd President of the United Staes

Entrance to the Truman Residence

Harry Truman's home

Yesterday, Wednesday, ended up being a really beautiful day, especially since we headed into Independence, MO, to see Harry Truman's house and visit his library.  We got there about 11:30 and headed off to his house after getting tickets.  Evie and I visited the home about 15 years ago and loved it and thought Mary, Nick and Marlena might enjoy it as well.  The tour accommodates 8 people maximum, so we were lucky to get included.  The tour lasted about 30 minutes and took us through the downstairs, almost exactly as it would have been when Truman and his wife Bess would have lived in it after his Presidency.  The kitchen was great, simple, unadorned, like Harry, with tables and utensils that I remembered from my  childhood in the 50's, especially the appliances and simple formica table and chairs.  We then walked to the dining room, with his darkened study just off of it, with lots of book shelves and his books.  Then into the living room and parlour, none of which had the feeling of a president having lived in it, a TV off in the corner unattended.  Harry and Bess lived simply, within a budget, with none of the wealth that today's presidents seem to accumulate; in fact, when he arrived home in Independence in 1955, he had to take a loan out to fix up his house.  Evie and I both remember his raincoat and hat hanging on the rack just inside the back door.

Entrance to Truman Library

His library was up on a hill, about a mile from his house, very 50ish in design, not much to my taste, one story and all plain stone, reminiscent of the Cleveland Art Museum.  Inside, however, it was very interesting, as it chronicled most of his life, with films, newspapers, tapes, posters, his cars, and exhibitions.  He certainly did preside at a crucial time, having to decide whether to use the A Bomb, then deal with the devastation of Europe, the threat of Communism, solving  both with the Marshall Plan.  Then came mass unemployment after the GI's returned home, then Mc Carthyism and finally the Korean War.  For such a modest man, it seems as though he rose to the task, though most people at the time did not know it.  His approval rate was 20% when he left office

Life Size Sculpture 

Library Courtyard and Truman's grave sites

We must have spent at least three hours total, at his house and library.  In the court yard of the library, Truman is buried next to his beloved wife Bess in a very simple memorial with the American flag flying high.  This is the only Presidential Library I have visited but I was moved by both his library and modest home, his life, and his courage in confronting so many difficult problems.  And as he said, "The Buck Stops Here," so unlike most of today's politicians.

We got home about 3:30 after a lunch at Backyard Burgers.  Tom got home from work about 5:30; I took Bella for another walk along the creek, Evie made up teriyaki marinade, and Tom cooked the pork chops on the grill.  We watched Kansas lose to Duke in Hawaii, then went to bed, ready for Turkey Day.

Right now, Marlena is up with Evie and me, everyone else is sleeping in.  Rose and Frank, Mary's parents will be over around 1:30, dinner at 4:00, lots of football in between I assume.  It's going to be a beautiful day, great for a walk, in the high 50's, then rain comes in tomorrow.

A poem for the day which I liked:

Turkeys

by Mary Mackey,

One November
a week before Thanksgiving
the Ohio river froze
and my great uncles
put on their coats
and drove the turkeys
across the ice
to Rosiclare
where they sold them
for enough to buy
my grandmother
a Christmas doll
with blue china eyes

I like to think
of the sound of
two hundred turkey feet
running across to Illinois
on their way
to the platter
the scrape of their nails
and my great uncles
in their homespun leggings
calling out gee and haw and git
to them as if they
were mules

I like to think of the Ohio
at that moment
the clear cold sky
the green river sleeping
under the ice
before the land got stripped
and the farm got sold
and the water turned the color
of whiskey
and all the uncles
lay down
and never got up again

I like to think of the world
before some genius invented
turkeys with pop-up plastic
thermometers
in their breasts
idiot birds
with no wildness left in them
turkeys that couldn't run the river
to save their souls