120: RUB-A-DUB-DUB; ALONE IN HILLARY’S TUB

Friday July 26, 2019 marked the end of our stay at the Johnson farm near Streetman, Texas.  My companions had the Highlander packed early; then they spent their final hour with Kim and Sally – Bill had left at the crack of dawn for a job he needed to complete.  Around 9:00am, we bid farewell to our hosts as we began our long journey home.  While Vicki navigated the long driveway towards the main gate, my photographer and his wife waved ‘goodbye’ to Rusty, Lyla and Tyra who stood and watched us drive past; the trio of longhorns likely were waiting for a treat.

The entire day was set aside to travel north and put miles behind us; but there was one site in Arkansas that Tom had penciled-in on our agenda – The Clinton House Museum in Fayetteville.  During our 2016 trip, we toured a handful of Clinton sites in Arkansas, including his boyhood home in Hope and the disappointing Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock; but we never made it to Fayetteville.  At roughly 3:00pm, and nearly 370 miles of highway in the rearview mirror, Vicki parked our vehicle in the small parking lot alongside the historic site.  As Tom carried me to the front of the small, single-story brick house, I saw a bronze plaque that was affixed to the exterior wall alongside the front door.  While there was an image of Bill and Hillary on the plaque that designated the place as their home, there was nothing else written that described the historical significance of the building.

The one-bedroom house was built in 1931; when Bill Clinton purchased it on August 11, 1975 for $17,200, it became Bill and Hillary’s first home.  Bill thought the house would impress Hillary Rodham and inspire her to marry him.  His scheme worked.  Exactly two months later, on October 11, 1975, the couple were married in the living room at a time when each of them taught at the University of Arkansas School of Law.  A year later, Bill became the Attorney General for his state and the couple moved to Little Rock.  During that time, the future “Power Couple” rented their home to law students until Bill sold their place in 1983. 

Once Tom had snapped a handful of images of me in front of the Clinton’s home, he took me inside where we had the chance to roam around unattended, although Vicki stayed near our college-aged tour guide for most of our time inside.  There were no authentic furnishings inside and the interior had been renovated to appear like it was in the 1970s when the Clintons lived there. In the living room, near the spot where the Clinton’s “tied the knot”, we saw a display case that featured an exact replica of Hillary Rodham’s wedding dress.  As Tom carried me throughout the interior of the house, there were two places that interested me the most.  I was honored to stand on the precise place in front of the living room window where Bill and Hillary exchanged wedding vows on October 11, 1975.  The second occurred when our young tour guide mentioned that the bathtub was original to the house when the Clinton’s lived there. For some strange reason, I immediately knew that Tom would place me in the white porcelain tub for a photo.  And sure enough, I was right.  At first, I thought it was a tad bizarre to stand in the same bathtub where Bill and Hillary once bathed; but at the same time, I also believed that stunt was right up my alley.  Heck, I once stood on Martin Van Buren’s toilet; so it was obvious that I had no limits as to where I will pose for a picture.  During my short stay in the bathtub, I did my best to not envision Hillary taking a bath; even though I find the former First Lady and Secretary of State attractive.  While I was concerned that my thoughts would have invaded her privacy, I know there are some things that you simply cannot “unsee” once they’ve been seen – even if it’s only in my resin-filled mind.

Tom and Vicki spent about a half hour inside the house before we ventured into the backyard to an area known as The First Ladies Garden.  In that tranquil garden, which was created in 2010 in honor of Hillary Clinton, were the favorite flowers of all 47 First Ladies that were in full bloom. When we finished our tour of the garden, my photographer wanted one more photo before we returned to the Highlander.  Situated in the front yard of the Clinton House was a painted statue of a razorback; and since we were in Arkansas Razorback country, my photographer couldn’t resist taking a photo of it.  I, on the other hand, was glad Tom didn’t have me pose with the pathetic and painted pig. In my opinion, a bronze statue of the newlyweds would’ve looked better in front of their house. As we headed down the road, I stood in the camera case and smiled to myself. It was amazing feeling to be back on the Presidential trail.

Roughly five minutes after we departed from the Clinton House, our 85-mile drive to Joplin, Missouri was interrupted when my companions saw Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium.  While my photographer has primarily always been a NFL fan, his wife seemed to enjoy college football more than the professional league and she wanted to stop to get a better look at the home of the Arkansas Razorbacks.  Although my companions didn’t walk up to the stadium, mostly due to heavy traffic in the area, they did take the time to snap a few photographic images of the football stadium from afar. From my position in the camera case, which was around Tom’s shoulder, I wasn’t interested in the Razorbacks and never took a peek. As a matter of fact, I was still day dreaming about Hillary’s bathtub.

It was after 6:00pm when we arrived in the City of Joplin, Missouri.  Although we were nearly 40 miles south of the Harry Truman birthplace in Lamar, Tom figured that Joplin provided the largest selection of hotels to choose from, which was proven correct after Vicki found a good rate at the La Quinta Inn.  My photographer also discovered that we were less than 15 miles from a geographical anomaly; one that he wanted to visit and photograph before we headed for Lamar in the morning.  It was an opportunity for the three of us to stand in three states at one time, which I thought seemed cool when I heard Tom mention the site to his wife.  In my mind, I figured there couldn’t be many places in the country where a bobble head could stand in three states at once.

After Tom and Vicki finished their dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which was located across the street from our hotel, I was placed in my usual spot next to the television set where I spent the night.  Even though I was extremely excited to tour Truman’s birthplace, I couldn’t get the three-state anomaly out of my head.  Since I’ve visited every Presidential gravesite, I’ve also been on a personal mission to visit all 50 states.  In the morning, if everything goes as planned, I will stand in six percent of that goal all at once.

**********

The alarm woke my companions at 6:00am on Saturday July 27, 2019. While our trip was in its final stages, we still had a lot of Presidential sites to see between the City of Joplin and home. But our first place of interest of the day had nothing to do with the Presidents. Instead, it’s the precise spot where the states of Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas all met together, which was just 14 short miles to the southwest of our hotel. Once the Highlander was once again packed with Tom and Vicki’s belongings, including me in the backseat, Vicki sat behind the wheel for our 12-minute drive to SE 118th Street – a narrow dirt road that straddled the border of Missouri and Kansas. When we arrived at the end of the desolate road, a large stone cairn was the first thing the three of us saw. The tri-state spot was first surveyed in 1857 by an adventurous 800-member group; in 1938 the stone cairn was erected on that group’s precise spot. Unfortunately that group of surveyors had missed the actual location by roughly 50 feet; and likely thanks to GPS, a new plaque – made of metal and embedded into concrete – was placed on the three-state spot in 2004.

Timing is everything; just as we ended our photoshoot at the tri-state marker, a tour bus approached from the north. It turned out to be loaded with people from the hotel that we had stayed at; Tom and Vicki saw it being loaded when we drove out of the La Quinta’s parking lot. Even though I had been to each of those states in the past, I found it exciting to stand in three states at once. In my mind, I hoped my photographer will take me to other sites like that in the future; with the ultimate being the Four Corners out west.

From the borders, we retraced our route through the City of Joplin and then north for about 40 miles where we arrived at Lamar, Missouri around 10:15am. As Tom removed me from the Highlander, I caught my first glimpse of the birthplace home of our 33rd President Harry S Truman. Since there was no one near the exterior of the white wooden house, my photographer decided to capture our images before he arranged our free tour of the interior.

The one-and-a-half story house was built around 1881; John and Martha Truman bought the house as newlyweds in 1882 for $685. On May 8, 1884, Harry Truman was born in a downstairs bedroom. On the day his first son was born, John Truman planted an Austrian pine tree in the front yard – that tree was still there over 135 years later. Eleven months after the future President was born, the Truman family moved from that house to a farm near Harrisonville, Missouri; which was just south of Kansas City.

The three of us walked across the street to the Visitor Center while we waited for the next tour of the home’s interior. While most of the items in the center were souvenirs, there was one very interesting and important artifact – the guest book that was there when the birthplace was dedicated as a State Historical Landmark on April 19, 1959. And who was the first person to sign that book? None other than Harry S Truman himself. I found it very humorous that the former President signed the book as: ‘Harry S Truman, Independence, MO, Retired Farmer’.

The three of us met our tour guide at the Visitor Center and the young woman led us across the street to the rear door of the home. My photographer and I knew that the furnishings in all six rooms of the birth house were period pieces; but I still wanted to pose on the bed in the room where Truman was born. Once we had visited each room and I was held for photos in most of them, Tom asked the tour guide if I could stand on the bed for a picture. He sought permission as there was a barricade at the bedroom entrance and the young lady never let us out of her sight. At first she was hesitant, but after my photographer went through his well-rehearsed spiel about our mission, the guide said to him: “I can’t let you into the bedroom because I could get in trouble; but if you would like, I can place the bobble head on the bed for your photo.” That’s all we needed to hear. As I stood on the bed that represented the one where Truman was born, I had wished it was the ‘Real McCoy’. But I knew in my resin heart that there was a chance that Truman may have touched that bed when he was in his birth room during his 1959 tour of the home.

When our tour concluded and my photographer thanked our guide for her cooperation, the three of us made our way to the Highlander. I figured we had a long drive ahead of us; especially when I overheard Tom tell his wife that we were headed to see Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone. My first reaction was: “We’re headed back to Monticello? Heck, we were there just two months ago – but I’m always game to visit Jefferson’s home.” But when I heard the rest of the story, it turned out to be Jefferson’s original tombstone that had been moved from Monticello to the University of Missouri in Columbia.

After my companions completed their 200-mile northeastern zig-zagged trip to Columbia, Vicki parked our vehicle along South 9th Street at a spot close to where Tom knew he could find Jefferson’s original obelisk. When the three of us walked onto the campus, my photographer immediately recognized the six Ionic columns of the David R. Francis Quadrangle; Jefferson’s tombstone was situated just east of those columns. Although Tom was relieved that he found the obelisk quickly, he was also dismayed by the fact that a handful of people were congregated around the tombstone. After Tom photographed me as I stood on a nearby bronze statue of our third President, my camera guy approached the group of guy’s and politely asked them to relocate away from the granite marker. Not only did they move so that we had an unobstructed view of Jefferson’s tombstone, they also thought our Presidential mission was very interesting after Tom narrated a quick story.

Seven years after Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, that granite obelisk was placed over our third President’s grave. A historically interesting fact was Jefferson had designed the marker himself and was very adamant of the size, shape and wording. He insisted the obelisk be constructed of coarse stone so that it would not be destroyed for the value of its minerals. But just three years later, souvenir hunters had chipped-away at the stone obelisk, which caused the new owner of Monticello to remove the marble epitaph and store it away for safekeeping. In 1883, Jefferson’s descendants donated the tombstone and epitaph to the University of Missouri before it was completely destroyed. The university immediately moved the tombstone to its location near the Quad, while the marble epitaph was put on display in Academic Hall. Unfortunately, that building was destroyed by fire in 1892; severely damaging Jefferson’s original marble slab.

While the epitaph on the obelisk’s face was a reproduction, the nine-foot tall granite marker was the one that stood in the Monticello graveyard for 50 years. Tom placed me onto a ledge of the obelisk that was near the marble epitaph where I posed for a handful of photos. As I proudly posed for the images, I thought to myself: “I’m 878 miles from Monticello, yet I’m standing on Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone that was placed above his buried corpse only seven years after his death. While it would’ve been cool to stand on the current tombstone when I was at Monticello in May, this was similar to Bell’s Long Distance vintage television slogan – “It’s the next best thing to being there.”

Altogether we spent a little over a half-hour at the area around Jefferson’s original tombstone. Since it was close to 4:30pm, Tom wanted to get some miles behind us before we hunkered down for the night. Our target for the morning was Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield, Illinois, which was about 185 miles from Columbia. I heard my photographer ask his wife to find a reasonably priced motel near Louisiana, Missouri; a small Mississippi river town that was nearly halfway to Springfield. Once Vicki secured our place to stay, which was the River’s Edge Motel that overlooked the Mighty Mississippi, we headed northeast.

We arrived at our motel at roughly 6:15pm and quickly discovered that the reviews of the River’s Edge Motel had been exaggerated – and not in a good way. The River’s Edge appeared to be old, dirty, and was basically a true “Cockroach Inn”; but unfortunately we were stuck with our “no refund policy” motel. If I could’ve talked out loud, I would’ve impersonated Ellen Griswold when her vacationing family arrived at Kamp Komfort: “Come on Clark, this looks like a nice place. It’s got a view of the river – and everything.” After my companions unpacked the Highlander, the three of us headed across the street to Abel’s Quik Shop, which was a gas station and convenience store all rolled into one. The motel clerk insisted that the Hunt Brothers Pizza at Abel’s was the best around; and I laughed to myself when I thought: “I’m so hungry I could eat a pizza from a gas station.”

Shortly after Tom and Vicki ate their pizza, which turned out to be surprisingly edible, the lights were extinguished in the room at 9:00pm. Throughout the night, as I stood next to the television set, I kept my painted eyes peeled for any creepy-crawlies that likely were in the room; the only thing that helped me get through the night were the thoughts of Lincoln’s Springfield that filled my head. In 2014, we had toured the Lincoln sites in Springfield; but we left town without going inside the President’s home – only because my stubborn photographer heard the historic home didn’t feature many authentic furnishings and he didn’t “want to wait in line to see antiques”. Five years later, however, Tom was singing a different tune; we were about twelve hours away from walking into the only home Abraham Lincoln ever owned. I smiled when I thought to myself: “If we see Lincoln’s bathtub, I wonder if I will envision Hillary bathing in it?” Knowing the looks of ol’ Abe and Mary Todd, I could only hope so!