When Tom’s alarm went off at six o’clock on Sunday August 4, 2024, it was a bittersweet moment for the entire clan. It was time to pack up and start the laborious journey home – which was only a short 820 miles away. While the six games my photographer’s grandson’s team played over the past three days were fun to watch, I was anxious to hit the road and visit a few more Presidential sites along the way back to Michigan. And the funny part was, it wouldn’t take long as my cameraman discovered two Truman sites in Independence we had missed earlier in the week.
At 8:40am, Vicki backed the Jeep out of the Airbnb driveway in Prairie Village, Kansas for the final time. A little over twenty minutes later, Tom and I were playing a game of ‘Where’s Waldo’ in downtown Independence, Missouri, even though I wasn’t totally sure where we were when my photographer opened the door of the Jeep after we had parked. Initially, I saw a church and I heard we were on West Waldo Avenue, but I was confused about the Presidential connection. Was this the church Truman had attended as a child?
It turned out our first destination of the morning was located next to the church, which was an elegant two-and-a-half-story home which was originally built in 1886. Nine years after its construction, John and Martha Truman purchased the home and moved their family, including 12-year-old Harry, into the new residence on West Waldo. The President once said of that family house, “We found West Waldo Street to be a most pleasant neighborhood. Our house soon became headquarters for all the boys and girls around.” And from what I saw and felt, nothing has changed in the past 120 years. The tranquil setting in the neighborhood seemed similar to the street where Ward and June Cleaver raised their kids on the TV show ‘Leave it to Beaver.’
But in 1901, something was seriously wrong with the Beaver. After John Truman lost a great deal of money in commodity speculation, the family lost their home and were forced to move out to the Young family farm in Grandview in early 1902. Harry Truman’s dad went from his Ward Cleaver persona to Oliver Douglas overnight.
Over the years, Harry Truman’s boyhood home had changed hands numerous times and today was a private residence. Tom carried me along the sidewalk where I posed with the historic home in the background. Suddenly, my photographer noticed another Presidential connection – the connection was in the form of a very tall tree near the sidewalk at the corner of Waldo and North River Boulevard. The tree was a tulip poplar planted in 1990, and it was a direct offshoot of one planted by George Washington at Mount Vernon in 1785. Even though it was obvious President Truman never saw the tree, nor did Wally or The Beaver, it was still cool to think about its roots being tied to our first President and not Eddie Haskell.
Our visit at the Truman boyhood home was short and sweet. But during those ten minutes or so, it was easy to envision the bespectacled teenager as he played with his friends in the yard. It was yet another chapter in the life of Harry S Truman and I’m thankful we didn’t leave town without seeing it.
When Vicki pulled out of the church parking lot next to the Truman home, she drove our Jeep about six or seven blocks to the southeast where she entered the parking lot of another church. When Tom carried me across Pleasant Street and up to the majestic brick place of worship, I posed for several photos near the First Presbyterian Church of Independence.
The Presbyterian church in front of me was built in 1888 and was attended by future President Harry S Truman. The funny thing was, Truman was a Baptist but went to that church because it was fairly close to where he lived in town. At the age of six, while Harry attended Sunday School in that building, he met a young five-year-old girl named Elizabeth Wallace. The young boy was instantly smitten with his new friend, and through his thick eyeglasses, she likely looked like an angel sent from heaven. From that moment on, Little Bess resided in Truman’s heart, and she stayed there for the rest of his life.
Tom and I didn’t attempt to visit the interior of the church because it was Sunday morning and the two of us didn’t want to interrupt the local parishioners who were there for the weekly service. When the two of us returned to the Jeep where Vicki was busy watching her Instagram influencers, it was nine-thirty and time for the three of us to leave Independence.
All of the sites Tom, Rory, and I saw and the people we met will never be forgotten as our time in Independence made the three of us Wild About Harry. And thankfully, the three of us never saw the darker, hidden, swept-under-the-rug side of that city – which was the fact Independence has been known for a while as the methamphetamine capital of the United States. While the city proudly boasts about being home to our 33rd President, had Truman still been alive today, Ol’ Harry would be giving someone hell about his city’s meth problem.
For over 330 miles of non-stop driving, I stood in the camera case on the back seat and listened to 50’s and 60’s tunes on my photographer’s Sirius XM radio in the Jeep. Oh, there were occasional comments Tom made when we drove past sites we had visited before, like Thomas Jefferson’s original tombstone in Columbia, Missouri or the River’s Edge Motel in downtown Louisiana, Missouri. But once we had crossed the Mighty Mississippi River and were in the Land of Lincoln, my photographer had his sights set on one thing – a large boulder situated in the middle of nowhere.
At precisely 2:30pm, Vicki drove into a large park located about ten miles west of Decatur, Illinois. The 162-acre state park, known as the Lincoln Trail Homestead State Memorial, is believed to be where the Lincoln family first settled in Illinois after they left their home in Indiana behind.
In March 1830, Thomas Lincoln arrived on the north bank of the Sangamon River where he decided to settle with his extended family, including his 21-year-old son Abraham. The Lincoln’s worked hard; after they constructed a small 18-by-18-foot cabin, they planted a large crop of corn. It was also at this site where Abraham Lincoln got the nickname “The Rail Splitter” because he split rails for his father’s farm and made extra money by making split-rail fences for other farmers as well.
But unfortunately, the Lincoln’s were besieged with hardships that would’ve destroyed most pioneer families. Not only did their crop fail, but many members of the family contracted severe cases of malaria from living in the Illinois wetlands, and the harsh winter was devastating. So much so, in fact, the miserable conditions of that first year broke the Lincoln family apart for good. In March 1831, Abe’s dad and stepmother moved to a new settlement located nearly 70 miles to the southeast, while the future President was hired to pilot a flatboat on the Sangamon River. That job took Lincoln to New Salem where he eventually settled and began his transformation into the legendary savior of the Union we’ve all read about in history books.
While my photographer’s wife once again stayed in the Jeep, Tom carried me into a tree-lined clearing and up to a large boulder. That large rock was affixed with a bronze informational plaque that read, ‘This tablet marks the site of the first home in Illinois of Abraham Lincoln – 1831.’ Although I stood on the boulder, as well as on the soil near the large rock, there has been absolutely no archeological evidence the Lincoln log cabin once stood on that spot. No one, including the finest historians and the most tenacious archeologists, can say for one hundred percent certainty of where the Lincoln’s first Illinois home once stood. However, by President Lincoln’s own written account in 1860, his description of their Illinois homestead on the north side of the Sangamon River gave experts a good reason to believe the cabin’s location was where the boulder had been placed.
As soon as the two of us, minus the pesty fruit fly, returned to the Jeep where Vicki patiently waited for us, Tom suggested we find a hotel in the Decatur area because it was three o’clock and we already had a long day of travel. But when my photographer’s wife discovered our next Presidential site was located on the campus of the University of Illinois, which was only an hour away, Vicki suggested we visit the site and then find a hotel in the Urbana – Champaign area. It was obvious Tom was astonished by his wife’s willingness to press on; and I nearly fell out of the camera case in total shock as well.
It took just over an hour to make the drive through the boring corn-filled countryside of central Illinois until we arrived at the university, which was located between the cities of Urbana and Champaign, Illinois. Since it was just after four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, the traffic around the campus was almost nonexistent and street parking near our destination was plentiful. As a matter of fact, when Vicki parked along West Nevada Street, we could easily see the majestic Foellinger Auditorium to the west of us. After a short hike, during which my photographer used his newly purchased ornate cane to stabilize his steps along the uneven sidewalks, we were standing directly in front of the auditorium. From the building’s steps, the three of us were afforded our first glimpse of The Main Quad and the Illini Union in the distance.
I posed for several images near the north side of Foellinger Auditorium and stood on the same spot where Senator John F. Kennedy had delivered a speech on October 24, 1960. As I looked out over The Main Quad where I had the same view JFK had during his speech, it was as though the candidate’s words were still echoing in the still afternoon air.
The Senator said to the large crowd gathered in front of him, “I do not think that what was good enough in the administrations of Harding and Coolidge and McKinley is good enough for today. We are being tested as we have never been tested before, and if we fail, we fail not only ourselves, but we fail the cause of freedom.” In my resin mind, those words are as relevant today as they were in 1960 – and in some ways, even more so.
Foellinger Auditorium, which was originally called ‘The Auditorium’ when it was built and opened in 1907, is a concert hall and the university’s largest lecture hall. Not only did the building serve as a backdrop for Kennedy’s campaign speech in 1960, but Democratic Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter also delivered a speech there in 1976 for roughly 2,000 students gathered inside the auditorium. During his attempt to woo student voters, Carter promised a blanket pardon to those who deserted the military during the Vietnam War. Then four decades later, former President Barrack Obama stood in Carter’s footsteps and addressed the students in 2018.
While it was cool Carter and Obama had both delivered addresses inside the auditorium, our primary reason for walking onto the campus of the University of Illinois was to stand in the footsteps where John F. Kennedy delivered his campaign speech on October 24, 1960. As I stood on a metallic insignia embedded into the concrete in front of the auditorium, I could feel Kennedy’s presence there. JFK had an aura that most Presidents only wished they had; and his youthful vibrance; his sense of humor and wit; combined with his tactful charm were second to none.
When John F. Kennedy stood in front of Foellinger Auditorium and spoke to the University of Illinois student body and faculty, he had no way of knowing he had less than 37 months left to live. But during JFK’s 1,036 days in office, he became the greatest American President since Franklin Roosevelt – and one whose legacy will live on forever in our history.
While our half-hour visit was tranquil and filled with a sense of peace and pride, I knew in my heart it wasn’t a good representation of the direction our nation was headed in the next few months. As a matter of fact, it felt like the calm before the storm. Republican nominee Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13th, and a week later, Democratic candidate and incumbent President Joe Biden dropped out of the race due to his cognitive decline. I have an eerie feeling the atmosphere around our country will grow more dangerous as Election Day 2024 draws closer, and that means no one wins. Oh, a President will get elected by the vote of our citizens, which is guaranteed by our sacred Constitution. However, if both parties and their supporters can’t get their acts together, that very instrument of our democracy will be in serious jeopardy.
On October 24, 1960, Senator Kennedy stood in front of Foellinger Auditorium and said to the large crowd, “I run for the Presidency in the most serious time in the life of our country and these issues involve the security of everybody here.” Sixty-four years later, JFK’s words still ring true – but unfortunately, the only Kennedy on the 2024 Michigan ballot has brain worms and eats roadkill.
I watched while my companions sat on a bench alongside The Main Quad as Vicki scoured her phone for the best deal on a good hotel in the area. But once they were finished and we made the short hike back to the Jeep, Tom decided he wanted to take a stroll down memory lane; or better yet, down the Yellow Brick Road.
Vicki navigated the Jeep south through the heart of the University of Illinois, past the football stadium, until she pulled into a parking lot where the three of us saw an enormous spaceship on the ground in the distance. Shortly after Tom vacated our vehicle with me in hand, he set me on the grass with the giant flying saucer behind me. For a fleeting moment, I felt like a rocket man, and it was lonely out in space. But for my photographer, it had been a timeless flight, and such a long, long time since his first encounter with that same saucer nearly forty-four years earlier.
It turned out the “flying saucer” we had parked near was the State Farm Center, which first opened as Assembly Hall on March 2, 1963. For the first two years of its existence, Assembly Hall was the largest dome structure in North America until the Astrodome opened in Houston, Texas. While Elvis Presley packed the arena on October 22, 1976, it was a show by Elton John that brought my photographer and his wife to the University of Illinois for the first time on October 4, 1980 – which was less than four months after they were married. In a true sense of irony, Elton’s 1980 World Tour marked the first time he ever sang John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ in a concert. Two months and four days after Elton belted out Lennon’s signature hit at Assembly Hall, the former member of The Beatles was gunned down by an assassin’s bullets in New York City.
My two companions had bathed in the soothing waters of nostalgia, which was spawned by a Madman Across the Water in 1980. But it was after five o’clock and Tom and Vicki needed to make their way to their hotel, which was located over three miles north of the State Farm Center. And during the entire ten-minute drive, I did my best to butcher the lyrics to an Elton John song called ‘Holiday Inn’ from his Madman Across the Water album.
“Champaign at last, where we’re now settling down; our hostess is handing the hot towels around. From Assembly Hall in our maroon limousine, it was a ten-minute ride to the Holiday Inn. Boredom’s a pastime that Tom’s not acquired; he travels around and never seems tired. I stand by the TV till the time comes around, to get back in my bag and head out of town. Slow down, Joe, I like rock and roll, man. I’ve twiddled my thumbs with my stiff resin hands. And you ain’t seen nothing till you’ve been, in a motel, baby, like the Holiday Inn.”
While Vicki registered at the Holiday Inn Express in Urbana, Tom unpacked the Jeep for the last time and quickly rolled the luggage cart to our room. My photographer seemed to be in a hurry, which was likely due to the fact it was 5:22pm and my fat friend hadn’t eaten much all day.
With no rest for the weary, the three of us were back in the vehicle and headed for what my cameraman said was “somewhere over the rainbow.” I couldn’t believe my resin ears. Hadn’t we already bid farewell to the Yellow Brick Road from 1980? But as Vicki retraced our route back towards the saucer formerly known as Assembly Hall, she pulled into the parking lot of a place called Rainbow Garden, which was a Chinese restaurant recommended by our hotel’s desk clerk. For the next forty-five minutes or so, I had the “pleasure” of watching my photographer fill his face with pepper steak and egg rolls.
Back at the hotel, Tom placed me alongside the TV set where I would spend the final night of our trip. When the lights were turned off at ten o’clock, I stood in the darkness and thought about the Presidential sites I had visited in the past eleven days. And as time stood still before me, all those images seemed to fade to black and white. We were over four hundred miles from home, yet there were no historical sites left on our agenda – and that saddened me to no end. The sun had gone down on me, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.
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Monday August 5, 2024 began when my photographer’s alarm rang at 6:00am. While I watched my companions scurry around the room as they packed up their belongings for the long trip home, neither of them noticed my melancholy state of mind. I was like a candle in the wind, not knowing who or what to cling to. Loneliness is tough and is perhaps the toughest role I’m forced to play. And while Tom tried to create a superstar, pain was the price I paid. Exactly sixty-two years ago, actress Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home – and all the papers had to say, was she was found in the nude.
Ironically, as my visions of Norma Jeane went from a PG rating to Triple X, my solemn moment in the room was shattered when I heard my photographer tell his wife we were headed to the place where a guy once made a Triple XXX appearance. Our morning was less than 45 minutes old, and it seemed to be getting worse by the second. However, when I discovered the “guy” was Guy Fieri, and the Triple XXX was the same small diner in West Lafayette, Indiana we had visited in 2019, the shocked look on my face quickly transformed into a huge smile. From that moment on, my thoughts went from Marilyn to Valerie; the server I had met during our visit five years earlier.
Even though we left the hotel at a decent time, the 90-mile drive to West Lafayette took an hour longer than anticipated when we crossed into the Eastern Time Zone. In the grand scheme of things, however, the eleven o’clock arrival made it the perfect time for lunch. When the three of us went inside the diner, it looked the same as it did in 2019; and since my photographer is a creature of habit, he and his wife sat in the same padded stools they had occupied during our first visit. I had to admit, I was a bit disappointed at first when a short girl named Cathy, who had a distinct southern accent, served my companions instead of Valerie. And to add insult to injury, Carrie Ehresman, the diners’ owner who treated us so well in 2019, was nowhere to be seen either. But at the end of the day, none of that really mattered because the four reasons for our reunion tour at the Triple XXX Family Restaurant was the atmosphere, the food, the root beer, and Guy Fieri – and not necessarily in that order.
That’s right, the Food Network’s reality TV star Guy Fieri came to the West Lafayette diner in 2007 where he featured the Triple XXX Family Restaurant in the Season One, seventh episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives called ‘Burgers’, which originally aired on June 11, 2007. The Triple XXX was established in 1929 and when visitors walk through the doors, it’s as though they’re transported back in time to a more innocent period in our history.
Once again, like he had done in 2019, Tom ordered a Duane Purvis All-American burger, which featured the diner’s signature chopped steak, cheese, onion, tomato, lettuce, pickles, and peanut butter – all sandwiched between a home baked bun. My photographer also feasted on a root beer float, which is one of the menu-items the diner is most known for. In 2007, after owners Greg and Carrie Ehresman prepared the same Duane Purvis burger for Fieri to try on his show, it was one of the few times the reality star was vocally disgusted with the food. And that was due to Guy’s disdain for peanut butter.
Once my photographer had wiped the peanut butter from his lips and chin, Tom, Vicki, and I left the Triple XXX Restaurant and returned to our Jeep. Although I figured Vicki would drive straight home from West Lafayette, my camera man had other ideas. He suggested we break up the 350-mile ride by stopping at an antique shop or two along the way – which was exactly what Tom’s wife wanted to hear. Had he suggested finding a remote Presidential site, however, Tom might have been hit over the head with one of the bottles of root beer he had just purchased.
After an extensive on-line search by my photographer while his wife drove towards Michigan, Tom found an interesting place located in the town of North Webster, Indiana. By the time we pulled into the parking lot of the Heart of the Lakes Antique Mall at 2:30pm, Tom figured he and his wife had roughly a half-hour to shop. After all, we were still four hours from home and it’s a known fact my old and ancient companions like to be off the road by nightfall.
Inside the large store, Tom wandered around as quickly as his bad knees would allow. During his thirty-minute time limit, he saw two items of interest, but he could afford only one of them. I laughed to myself when I heard him say to Vicki, “I’m going to sink five bucks into this Titanic puzzle. It looks challenging and if I can’t put it together, I’ll go down with the ship.”
It was a few minutes past three o’clock when Tom walked out of the Heart of the Lakes Antique Mall with me in one hand and the Titanic puzzle in the other. It was time to begin the long ride home, one that was made a bit longer because my photographer wanted to avoid driving through Detroit.
The traffic was light, and the weather was ideal when we crossed the border into Michigan about 90 minutes after we left North Webster. For just over four hours, my companions listened to 50s and 60s hits on the radio. At the same time, I kept my ears peeled for one song in particular – the 1963 mega-hit called ‘Dominique’ by the Singing Nun.
Finally, after a butt-numbing long ride around Lansing and across half the state of Michigan, we arrived home at 7:22pm with 2,450 miles tacked onto my career mileage total of 77,679. Over the past twelve days, Tom and I had visited a countless number of Presidential sites – some of which we’d seen before, and some we had not. While my highlight came when we visited the Mount Pulaski Courthouse where Abraham Lincoln once practiced law, I know my photographer’s moment of pride came when his grandson Rory toured the Harry Truman sites with us.
After my photographer had made an attempt to coordinate a trip to Pennsylvania with Bob Moldenhauer, which had unfortunately fallen through, it looks like I might be finished for the year. But even though I’ll be standing around and twiddling my resin thumbs for quite some time, I’ll be interested in two historic Presidential events headed our way in the near future. The first will come on October 1st when President Jimmy Carter celebrates his 100th birthday. And the second will be the 2024 Presidential election on November 5th. Will Donald Trump become the second President to serve two non-successive terms, or will Kamala Harris pull off the upset and give me a whole new set of sites to visit? Either way, I can’t wait for 2025. But for now, it’s time for me to say goodbye to our Yellow Brick Road.
“Where the dogs of society howl. He can’t keep me locked in his showcase, only ’cause I’m holier-than-thou. Back to the howling old Squatch in the woods, he’s eating the horny back toad. Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies, beyond the Yellow Brick Road.”
