The black sky was broken by the dawn’s first light as we left Michigan on our first trip of the year. As we went over the Blue Water Bridge and into Canada at 4:45am on July 7, 2017, I was in my usual spot on the back seat of the Avenger. Although it was the third time I had gone through Canadian Customs, I had the same uneasy feeling as the first time. My concern was the fear of border agents conducting a body cavity exam on me; which thankfully didn’t happen.
It took over three and a half hours to get through Canada and into New York where we drove onto Goat Island for our first Presidential stop of the trip. Goat Island is in the middle of Niagara Falls and separates the Bridal Veil Falls from the Horseshoe Falls. On the morning of September 6, 1901, President William McKinley and his entourage arrived in Niagara Falls by train from Buffalo. The party rode in their carriage halfway across the Honeymoon Bridge overlooking the Falls, though McKinley was careful not to enter Canada for reasons of protocol. Just before he had lunch with his wife, Ida, the President toured Goat Island; and at one point he walked over the Bridal Veil Falls Bridge onto Luna Island for an up-close view of the American Falls. Once his visit on that small island was finished, McKinley returned to Goat Island where a photograph of the President was captured as he lumbered uphill along the pathway.
Since my main goal has always been to be photographed standing in the footsteps of Presidents, I was carefully placed onto the paved pathway for my own historic image. It took nearly ten minutes for Tom to get the picture that he had envisioned as tourists constantly filed past me. Although I was concerned that a rambunctious youngster would accidentally kick me over as he or she ran past, my photographer was worried that someone, perhaps an anarchist, would snatch me up from the walkway and run off with me in their grasp. We were both relieved when neither event happened. As I stood where McKinley once was photographed, a sense of sadness consumed me. All I could think about was the fact that when our 25th President walked on that path, it was roughly five hours before he was shot inside the Temple of Music in Buffalo.
Before we left Goat Island, I was carried to Terrapin Point where I had a great view of the Horseshoe Falls. It was hard for me to fathom that as I stood there, 681,750 gallons of water per second dumped over the edge to the river below. I saw that the Maid of the Mist boat, some 160-feet below us, had moved so close to the falls that its passengers appeared to be getting soaked; even in their raingear. I couldn’t laugh much because the mist from the rushing water was getting me wet as well; but not as wet as I would’ve been had my photographer found a way to get me onto the rocky ledge for a picture. Sometimes that rotund camera guy gets his thrills by putting me in precarious situations for his pictures; and there was not a doubt in my mind he would’ve placed me within inches of the falls’ edge had he not been worried about plunging to his own death.
Niagara Falls was breathtaking and even though it was a minimal Presidential site at best, I found it to be a very worthwhile stop. While the next site on our agenda paled in comparison to Niagara when it came to beauty, it far exceeded the Falls when the focus turned to the Presidents; especially since it was one of only 38 such places in the country. Forest Lawn Cemetery was only 20 miles to the south and even though I had visited the grave of Millard Fillmore in 2014, I was still anxious to get back. As Vicki drove the Avenger through the massive front gates of Forest Lawn, I had to laugh to myself when she said: “I wonder if we will see a deer in here like last time?” I suppose I was impressed that she had remembered being in that cemetery before, but I know it disappointed my photographer that his wife’s focus was on an animal and not the final resting place of a President.
The Avenger was parked in the exact same place it had been three years earlier. Vicki stayed in the car and checked out social media on her phone while my photographer carried me to the fenced-in Fillmore burial site. The gravesite of our 13th President looked unchanged since our last visit, which meant our photoshoot at the tomb lasted less than ten minutes. At one point, Tom carefully placed me on top of the shrubbery that surrounded Fillmore’s granite obelisk for a couple of photos. But as I stood there, knee-deep in the greenery, I thought the shrubs had overtaken the lower part of the obelisk and they had become somewhat of an eyesore. I also noticed that the President’s actual small tombstone, where I had posed in 2014, was nearly hidden by the shrubs.
I know that it’s hard for my photographer to be near a city where a Presidential gravesite is located and not make an attempt to see it. And unlike his wife, I’m happy that he makes that effort. It was 10:30am and I was back in the camera case as we headed for the cemetery’s exit. Then out of nowhere, I heard Vicki suddenly shout out: “Tom, Tom, look over there. I see a baby fawn lying next to that headstone.” I couldn’t believe my resin ears. Sure enough, Vicki had spotted what appeared to be a new-born fawn that was huddled alongside the large granite marker of John W. Crafts. Tom grabbed the camera bag, with me in it, and quietly exited the car to capture images of the baby deer. During the photo session, I caught a glimpse of the fawn and was amazed by how close my photographer got to it. At one point, however, he got too close, and the small critter stood up on its wobbly legs and trotted off to another hiding spot. My cameraman and his wife spent a few minutes searching for the fawn’s mother, but they came up empty handed. I was sure that the doe was not too far from her baby.
Once we left Forest Lawn Cemetery, I had some time to reflect on our close encounter with the newborn fawn. After all, our next stop was over 140 miles away near the small village of Moravia, New York. It was 1:40pm when we pulled into Fillmore Glen State Park that was located just south of Moravia. The reason for our visit was the state park had featured a replica of President Millar Fillmore’s birthplace log cabin. When my photographer found out that we needed a park pass or we had to pay an eight-dollar fee to enter the park, old “Captain Cheapo” had his wife park the car and he carried me on foot over three hundred yards to the cabin.
After my cameraman had finished huffing and puffing his way to the replica cabin, the first thing that I noticed was how much that building resembled the cabin where the Wicked Witch of the West threw the fireball at the Scarecrow in the movie The Wizard of Oz. As a matter of fact, I expected the green-faced hag to appear on the roof at any minute and throw a fireball at us; especially since my photographer and I were the only ones in the vicinity. After he had snapped a few images of me posing alongside of the cabin’s exterior, Tom carried me inside where we saw a couple of rooms that featured replica furnishings from the time when Fillmore was born. The first room that I saw was the bedroom that contained a small, wooden bassinette that represented the one that Baby Millard likely slept in as a child. The other room, which was situated to the left of the entryway, was the dining area. In that room I saw tables, dishes, pots and pans, and anything else that a family would need in 1800. Both rooms were sealed off by Plexiglass, which was likely put in place to keep bobble heads like me from walking off with a fake fork.
Our next stop, which was the actual birthplace site of Millard Fillmore, was located down a desolate, two-lane road less than five miles east of Fillmore Glen State Park. When we arrived, the site appeared to be nothing more than a road-side rest area – complete with a picnic pavilion. But near that pavilion, somewhere on that ground, was where Millard Fillmore was born in a small log cabin on January 7, 1800. I was carried onto the site where I posed for a handful of photos; including one where I stood on the grass and clover-filled ground with the historical marker in the background. My photographer and I had figured that spot would have been the likely place where the cabin once stood. As I stood on that spot that was roughly 20-feet from the pavilion, a thought popped into my resin-filled mind: “Why didn’t historians simply assemble the state park’s replica cabin here instead of building that pavilion. But I guess nothing says history like having lunch on a Presidential birth site.”
Finished at the birth site of Fillmore, which was only a 15-minute stop, I found myself back in my protective case and headed for Fayetteville, New York; a small community that was a little over 50 miles from Moravia. In 1841, Stephen Grover Cleveland’s father moved his family to Fayetteville from Caldwell, New Jersey. Grover, who later became our 22nd and 24th President, lived in Fayetteville for most of the remainder of his childhood.
When we arrived in Fayetteville around 3:15pm, my photographer was slightly confused as to which house was Cleveland’s boyhood home. There was a historical marker on the corner of East Genesee Street and Academy Street, which at first gave us the impression that the historic home was on that corner near the sign. But upon further review, it turned out that Grover’s boyhood home was actually located at 109 Academy Street, which was a short walk from the corner where the sign was situated.
I was carried to the two-story house where young Grover had lived from the age of four until he was in his late teens. Since the home was a private residence, there was no way of going inside. I was able, however, to pose for a photo as I stood on the porch’s support post. As I stood on the post, I thought about what Cleveland’s former neighbors once said of the lad: He was “full of fun and inclined to play pranks.” It had also been written that young Grover was fond of outdoor sports.
Roughly three blocks south of the Cleveland home was the Fayetteville Free Library. My photographer had learned that a small, wooden sled that was once owned and used by Grover was on display inside the library. When Tom carried me inside the public library for a photo with the sled, he was given the bad news by a staff member that the sled was on loan to a museum in Albany. That unfortunate news was quickly followed by some unexpected and good information: We were told that there was a restaurant nearby that was called ‘Grover’s Table’. That building was once a mercantile owned by John McViccar; and not only did Grover Cleveland work there as a teenage apprentice, he also lived in the building’s unfinished attic.
The journey to the restaurant was a short one; Vicki parked the Avenger across the street from Grover’s Table. After I posed for a few photos with the exterior, I was carried inside to see the historic building’s interior and furnishings. My photographer and his wife sat at the bar where they had a beer and a quick burger. Tom also engaged in a conversation with the owner; a man in his late thirties who seemed to find me and my journeys interesting. As a matter of fact, the owner brought out an old book that was written about Grover Cleveland that featured an etching of Grover’s Table. Even though the book was published in 1884, the owner insisted that I stand on it for a photo. After my photographer and Vicki had finished dinner, the owner also wanted me to pose alongside a section of the original brickwork inside the restaurant. He mentioned to us that the bricks that I stood alongside were likely there when Grover Cleveland worked in the building as a mercantile apprentice.
It was a few minutes after 4:00pm when we left Fayetteville, which was slated as the last of our Presidential sites for the day. But Tom had one more surprise up his sleeve – he told Vicki that he wanted to take the Yellow Brick Road to Oz. That’s right; less than eight miles to the east was the town of Chittenango, New York where famed author L. Frank Baum was born on May 15, 1856. Baum had penned his most famed book ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ that was published on May 17, 1900.
Vicki drove the Avenger to the address of the home that was alleged to be the birthplace of Baum, but there was a good chance that the private residence was not the building where the author was born. In all likelihood, Lyman Frank Baum was born in a building somewhere on the property; a house that was destroyed long ago.
As we drove around the small community of Chittenango, we saw numerous buildings and businesses that featured a Wizard of Oz motif. The place that looked the best, but was closed, was the ‘All Things Oz Museum‘. It was unfortunate for my photographer that the museum was only open on Saturday and there was no way that we had time to stay in the area an extra day. Tom did manage, however, to photograph the yellow brick sidewalk outside of the museum. We also saw an antique store called ‘The Land of Oz and Ends’, but it had just closed ten minutes before our arrival. The only “Oz-themed” place that was open, and we nearly went inside, was a casino called ‘Yellow Brick Road’; but Tom decided against losing his money there.
It was nearly 5:30pm when we left Chittenango and headed east towards Utica, New York. We found a Holiday Inn Express, with a good rate, just off the Thruway on the northwest side of Utica and by 6:30pm I found myself next to the room’s television set. It had been an ambitious day that was filled to the brim with sites. But later that evening, as the lights in the room went out, all I could think of was Elton John sitting at his piano and singing the words: “So goodbye yellow brick road; where the dogs of society howl. You can’t plant me in your penthouse; I’m going back to my plough. Back to the howling old owl in the woods; hunting the horny back toad. Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies; beyond the yellow brick road.”
