One time I thought I would like to see the presidential libraries and/or memorial sites of each of the U. S. Presidents. I know now that will probably not occur, but I have been able to see some of them including the ones for Washington, Jefferson, Kennedy, Truman, Eisenhower, Coolidge, and now with this trip, LBJ. It would be hard to go to Texas and ignore LBJ's historical presence, and fortunately our tour included it.
The library and museum are located on the sprawling University of Texas campus. A very friendly and talkative volunteer met us when we entered. I asked her if she had known LBJ. "No," she answered, "but I feel like I did." In some ways I feel like I did, too. The museum is much like other presidential museums and includes a duplicate of the oval office he sat in at the White House. The building stands several stories tall to hold all the documents and memorabilia from his Presidency. Our stay was too short but informative.
The following day our guide directed us westward to the LBJ National Historical Park located fifty miles or more from Austin. I can still hear him as if it were yesterday when he spoke of the beloved hill country where he was born and raised. The park ranger drove us through this site in their own bus and showed us his humble beginnings. The buildings of his youth looked much like any other buildings where people need to work hard for a living, nothing fancy. Even the summer White House was rather plain. I came away most impressed with the family burial plot, his resting place, where we stood in the rain to see his tombstone set amidst the rest of his family's. It was a simple marker identical to the other grave stones except it dimensions measured only a bit larger.
The always present gift shop awaited, and we made our obligatory stop. I'm glad we did since I bought a copy of the book he had written, The Vantage Point, after leaving office. I believe he was a well-intentioned man but was drug down and out by the Vietnam War. I know he was strong on civil rights, and I enjoyed reading an anecdote he wrote that I believe illustrated his compassion for minorities. He wrote, "When I was in the Senate, we had an extra car to take back to Texas at the close of each congressional session. Usually my Negro employees ... drove the car to the ranch for us ... On one of those trips I asked Gene if he would take my beagle dog with them in the car." The employee did not act very willing to do so. Upon questioning, he told LBJ that the trip took three days, blacks had a hard time finding a place to eat and sleep in the segregated South, and their dog-sitting the Beagle would make it just that much harder. Here Johnson said, "I knew that such discrimination existed throughout the South. We all knew it. But somehow we had deluded ourselves into believing that the black people around us were happy and satisfied; into thinking that the bad and ugly things were going on somewhere else, happening to other people."
