Monday August 1, 2016 was a catch-22 for me; I was excited to see a couple more Presidential sites, but it was also our last full day in Texas. Bill and Kim went off to work at their Dallas Aerial Surveys company, which meant that Vicki would venture out with my photographer and me in the Avenger. Since Tom and I had already visited two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s houses, there was one left to see – the Ruth Paine House in Irving, Texas.
Although my cameraman knew the address to the Paine house, the only way to see the interior of the home was through a guided tour provided by the City of Irving Visitor’s Center. When we arrived there, we were told that tours were not available on Monday. But ten minutes later, after my photographer administered his well-rehearsed spiel about me, one of the staff members from the center relented and gave the three of us a private tour of the former home of Ruth Paine.
The ride in the small mini bus from the Visitor’s Center to the Ruth Paine House was a little over two miles. But before we arrived at our destination, however, we stopped in front of a house that was about a half-block from the Paine’s place. The brick ranch-style house was once owned by Linnie Mae Randle and her husband Bill. Buell Wesley Frazier was Linnie’s brother and was living at the house in 1963. On the morning of November 22nd, Lee Harvey Oswald walked from the Paine house to catch a ride to work with Frazier; a 19-year-old who also worked at the Texas School Book Depository. When Oswald got into Frazier’s Chevy, he placed a package on the backseat of the car that Lee said contained curtain rods. Together in the Chevy, Oswald and Frazier headed for the School Book Depository and into the history books.
Once our tour guide pulled the bus in front of Ruth Paine’s house and I was carried up the driveway, my photographer took a few minutes to capture images of the home’s exterior. I had wondered whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald had walked out of the driveway to the sidewalk on the morning of November 22nd or did he cut through the yard on his way to meet Buell Frazier. The one fact that I knew for sure was Oswald had stored his rifle in the attached garage behind me.
The first thing I saw when I was carried through the front door of the house was the living room. As soon as we entered the home, my photographer asked the guide what was authentic to the house from 1963. I was disappointed when Tom was told that only a large speaker, situated alongside the stereo, was in the home on November 22, 1963. Even with the lack of authentic artifacts, however, I was excited to be inside that historic house. After all, it was the last home where Lee Harvey Oswald slept as a free man.
The small house had two bedrooms; a master bedroom where Ruth slept and a guest room where Marina Oswald and her two daughters stayed. During his six-week employment at the Texas School Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald lived at a rooming house in Oak Cliff and only came to Irving on Fridays after work. He stayed at the Paine house all weekend; on Monday mornings Buell Frazier drove Oswald back to work. But late in the afternoon on Thursday November 21, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald surprised the occupants of the Paine house by showing up a day early. He had told Frazier that he needed to get some curtain rods for his apartment and that was the reason for the unexpected trip to Irving.
I was carried into the small guest bedroom, which was where Marina Oswald and her daughters slept while at the Paine’s. Inside the room I saw a bed, a small nightstand, a dresser, and a bassinette that depicted what was there in 1963. I was unexpectedly startled by a hologram-type image of an actor who portrayed Marina as she described the historical significance of that room. My photographer placed me onto the wooden nightstand which was where Lee Oswald had placed his wedding ring and wallet before departing for work on Friday November 22nd. As I stood there, I had wondered what was going through Lee Harvey Oswald’s mind at that moment. Did he know that he would likely never see his children again as he watched them sleeping in the crib? Was he nervous about what he had planned to do that afternoon on the sixth floor of the schoolbook building? Or was he simply thinking about grabbing the package of curtain rods and his ride into work with Buell Frazier?
After I was carried through the kitchen and breakfast nook that had no historical significance to me, the final stop of our tour was what I had anticipated since our arrival – the garage. My photographer carried me through the nook’s doorway and into the garage where I immediately saw the rolled-up blanket; albeit a substitute for the actual 1963 blanket. After I was once again startled by a talking hologram, Tom placed me onto the blanket, and he went to work with the camera. I had figured that the blanket I stood on was in the exact location as the one in ’63 because Ruth Paine had influenced where everything in the house and garage was placed. The only thing that crossed my mind as I stood there was whether or not the infamous Mannlicher-Carcano was once hidden beneath me. After all, that was the most famous rifle in American history and on the day before it was used to shoot President Kennedy, it was right there in that garage; right where I stood.
The Ruth Paine House and Museum was an incredible look at the final day of an unknown Oswald before the Kennedy assassination. Whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald shot the President, it was a fact that he slept in that house on November 21, 1963. Three days later Oswald was shot to dead by Jack Ruby in Dallas on live television. Even though it was disappointing that almost all of the furnishings inside the home were period pieces, I praised the City of Irving for preserving a huge piece of history. Too many times in my travels I have seen where a historical house had been demolished and a marker stood in its place. And I also saw places where a historical home fell into private hands and a tour of the interior was impossible; and at times, just getting a view of the exterior was problematic.
From downtown Irving, it was a little over 17 miles to our final Presidential stop of the day – the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the campus of Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas. I was excited for the visit as it was the fifth Presidential Library that I had toured; with Ford, Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower’s museums all coming before it. Tom took some time to photograph me at the building’s entrance; which was important to me as it was the location where five Presidents posed for a group photo during the Center’s dedication ceremony on April 25, 2013.
Whenever I visit a Presidential site, I look forward to seeing authentic artifacts that were lived in, stood on, touched, used or worn by the President of the United States. I don’t like replicas and I’m not a fan of period pieces; in other words, I want the real McCoy. As I was carried into the Bush 43 Library, my photographer, Vicki and I quickly began our search for the artifacts. The first thing I saw made me laugh – it was a small vile full of “hanging chads” from the 2000 Presidential election. That vile was located near a voting booth and ballot from Palm Beach County in Florida where the election results ultimately gave Bush the disputed Presidency over Al Gore.
Less than a week before the terrorist attack on America in 2001, President Bush hosted Mexican President Vicente Fox and his wife Martha at a State Dinner in the White House on September 5th. Since my photographer believed that Laura Bush is the most attractive First Lady in history, he snapped a photo of the dress that she wore for that State Dinner.
As I was carried around the corner from the dress, we entered an area that became the focus of George W. Bush’s entire Presidency: The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I had only been to four other Presidential museums, but I had to admit this room was the one that hit my resin heart strings the hardest. The centerpiece of the room were two steel I-beams, vertically displayed from floor to ceiling, that were recovered from Ground Zero. Engineers who examined the 16.7-foot tall beams stated they came from the three upper floors of the World Trade Center and were definitely impact beams.
Near the World Trade Center I-beams was a glass display case that featured the fleece jacket President Bush wore when he threw out the first pitch before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium. The actual baseball that Bush threw was also on display alongside his NYPD jacket. After I posed for a photo near the World Series items, I was carried over to another case that featured the bullhorn used by President Bush at Ground Zero on September 14, 2001. As he spoke to the throngs of first responders who had been tirelessly digging through the debris in search of survivors, Bush said through that bullhorn: “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”
Although the artifacts associated with 9-11 were worth the admission price, my photographer and I were underwhelmed overall by the exhibits on display at the Bush Presidential Museum. One of the last stops in the museum was a visit to the replica Oval Office of George W. Bush. Keep in mind, most of the recent Presidents have replica Oval Offices at their libraries; but what George 43, or the people in charge of the museum did, was disappointing at best. While tourists were allowed to walk into the faux Oval Office, only because everything in the room was a replica of the furnishings that where there when Bush was President, visitors had to pay extra to sit at the fake Resolute Desk for a photo by a professional photographer. When my photographer asked if he could set me onto the desk so he could snap a quick photo, the answer was a resounding “No”! I could tell that Tom was instantly agitated; the final confirmation came when he responded to the man: “Are you kidding me? There’s not one authentic piece of anything in this fake room and I can’t set that bobble head on a fake desk that’s covered in glass – that’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever heard. And then you have the nerve to charge people after they’ve already paid sixteen bucks to see virtually nothing authentic. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when it’s associated with George W. Bush.”
At one point during our two-hour visit, Vicki had noticed a pair of statues that depicted the father and son Presidents; and luckily for my photographer she was standing near the statues in the outdoor courtyard when the ugly Oval Office encounter had occurred. I was carried out to the eight-foot-tall bronze statues of George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush where I posed for a photo. As I stood between the two statues, I thought I heard my photographer say out loud: “I’m surprised they aren’t charging for photos here, too!”
The thermometer was nearing the three-digit mark when we walked from the Bush Library to the Avenger. We stopped for one last look, only because the grounds in front of the building appeared to be very unkempt with the long wild-looking grass. My first thought when I saw the long grass was: “Not only is the Bush Presidential Center the worst Presidential Museum in the country, it has the crappiest lawn, too.” It turned out that the longer grass was native bunch grasses, such as Buffalograss, Blue Grama, and Curly Mesquite; and were planted there on purpose at the recommendation of President and Mrs. Bush.
It was nearly 4:00pm when we arrived back at the Johnson’s after the hard-fought drive from Southern Methodist University back to Plano. After a nice dinner with Bill, Kim and Sally, we hung out with our hosts for the remainder of the evening. I could tell that my photographer’s wife was a bit sad as we spent our final night in Texas, but Tom assured her that we’d be back within three years. After all, my cameraman ran out of time to make the 260-mile drive down to the LBJ Ranch, which was a potential side trip that was on the agenda but didn’t work out on this trip. The ranch and gravesite of one Johnson was traded for the hospitality and kinship of another; and for us, that was a no-brainer of a trade. Bill and Kim Johnson made the three of us feel at home during our entire four-day stay; but that was no surprise as they are two of the nicest people I’ve come across during my three-year stint of visiting Presidential sites. Perhaps the only thing that would have made the stay even better was if Bill had laid on Oswald’s bed in Oak Cliff.
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Under a bright, blue cloudless sky on the morning of Tuesday August 2, 2016, we bid farewell to the Johnson’s and began our trip north. An hour after Riggs Johnson had licked Vicki’s face one last time, we arrived in Denison, Texas and the birthplace of our 34th President Dwight D. Eisenhower. We had arrived at the white two-story home about fifteen minutes early, which gave my photographer ample time to capture exterior images without other tourists in the pictures. The only issue we had was the sun angle and although the morning sunlight made our photoshoot difficult, we managed to capture the images that we needed.
There was a small handful of other tourists who had joined Tom, Vicki and me on the tour of Dwight Eisenhower’s birthplace. After a brief stop in front of the home, I was carried inside where we immediately saw the bedroom where Ike was born on October 14, 1890. All of the furnishings in the home were period pieces or reproductions, which always disappoints me. As I was held at the opening to the front bedroom of Ike’s parents David and Ida, I could see that the room was outfitted to resemble what it may have looked like in 1890, including a small cradle. To make the room look more authentic, David’s train mechanic’s hat hung near the dresser.
From the birth room, I was carried into the dining room where I was immediately placed onto the table just as the others had vacated the room. As I stood on the table, I was thrilled because Eisenhower had been served “The Big Texas Breakfast” there on the morning of April 20, 1946. That’s right – I was standing alongside Ike’s place setting that he used during his first visit back to the birthplace since his family moved from Denison when he was 18 months old. For a moment, I thought I heard the tour guide ask about my photographer’s whereabouts, but Tom was too sly to get busted and we quickly caught back up with the group in the parlor.
We had spent about 90 minutes visiting Eisenhower’s birthplace and the morning sun was beginning to heat things up quickly. I was placed back inside my camera case that was situated in its normal place on the Avenger’s back seat. I was happy that the car’s air conditioning was in fine working order as we headed east towards the Arkansas border. It’s not that I sweat; I just didn’t want my leg to crack open more.
When I heard Vicki mention that we finally crossed the border at Texarkana, my ears perked up because I knew we were only 30 miles from our next Presidential site. Would we see Bill Clinton at his boyhood home? I could only Hope!
