The reason I'd wanted to visit Little Rock was to see the Clinton Library, since I liked Eisenhower's, LBJ's, and Wilson's, and missed Hoover's (twice) and Hayes's. But I'm glad it turned out the way it did, because this summer my friend Jennie, an avid fan of the Driveabout, moved to Little Rock so this way I got to see both Clinton and her, as well as Central High School. I drove to Little Rock via Indiana, which is certainly not the direct route, but I had stops in Fort Wayne on the way down and Indianapolis on the way back. The result was a trip that seemed a lot longer than just five and a half days, which is what happens when you combine unrelated business and pleasure destinations with almost 2,000 miles of driving. (Just by comparison, the entire Driveabout was 19,000 miles.)
Little Rock is a pretty city, a bit smaller than Fort Wayne although in a metro area nearly twice as large. It's on the Arkansas River and as you're leaving town on Interstate 430 you reach a curve in the road which opens up a lovely vista of the river and a valley. (You see all sorts of things on the way out of Little Rock, including what appeared to be the largest Pentacostal church on earth and a factory that produces ammunition for Remington.)
This picture was taken from a park, not the Interstate (which you can probably tell since I picked up the edge of a parks display in the shot), but you'll get the idea:
You will not be surprised to learn that one of my favorite things to do with friends is talk. And Jennie and I did, a lot! We managed to squeeze in some sightseeing, too, but it was really great to have so much time to catch up.
Friday evening, we interrupted our conversation to find some barbecue, which I felt was necessary while in Little Rock. We went to Sim's Barbecue which was delicious. I also liked their wall:
Do you see the picture of President Obama in the middle? It's from the Chicago Sun-Times, which made me feel right at home.
Speaking of the President, it was my great good fortune that the ridiculous government shutdown ended when it did, in time for my visit. Both the Clinton Library and the Central High School historic site were more interesting from the inside than they would have been just to drive by.
Although I will say that the Clinton Presidential Center is impressive on the outside, too. (Because I have a perverse mind, the use of the word "center" here reminds me of when bowling alleys decided they could class themselves up by calling themselves bowling centers. Whatever.)
Here is Jennie in front of the museum. Or library. Or center.
During the Driveabout I had listened to Clinton's autobiography on CD, which was great during long midwestern drives because, as my brother-in-law once said about the circus, "It wasn't too short." So I had refreshed my memory about his life - can you believe he was elected President over twenty years ago? - which helped me focus on the more interesting things in the center rather than just facts and dates.
Such as Jesse, a tour guide whom we encountered in the replica Cabinet Room. As we walked in, he was telling some people about the early days of the Cabinet Room with Teddy Roosevelt, whose young daughters apparently had the run of the place. I'm pretty sure that Chelsea didn't climb under the table much, although there were probably days when that seemed pretty appealing. Jesse then started talking about the training they had received from White House staff and Secret Service agents. He said that someone in his group had asked what Hillary Clinton was like as First Lady, and was told, "we're not going to discuss that."
For some reason, I have started to objectify people lately. I don't mean "treat them as objects" but literally see them as objects. The other night on my street in Chicago I saw two people who looked so much like cartoons that if I didn't know better I would have thought I was in some sort of mixed media movie. I mention this because it happened when we walked into the Cabinet Room: a woman was standing at the table, completely still for the first moment I saw her, and I thought she was a mannequin. Fortunately for all involved she moved before I did something stupid like lean on her. Anyway, this phenomenon hasn't moved from weird to disturbing quite yet, and I sure hope it doesn't.
Back to President Clinton. In case it needs to be said, let me say that I am a Bill Clinton fan. I liked him when he was President, and he's become a completely fabulous former President, in my humble opinion. I'm not quite as big a fan as my friend Rachel, but I'm a lot older than she is and he was her First Love, while mine was, by necessity, Jimmy Carter. So my view of Clinton tends toward the sympathetic. I remember that he was the first President who was targeted by the Right Wing Nut Case Media Complex - whether it was Rush Limbaugh making fun of Chelsea (sorry, anyone who makes fun of the appearance of a 13-year-old has given up his right to walk on earth, I don't care what sort of prescription medications he's on) or the cottage industry of Hillary Haters (she killed Vince Foster? Really?). In my opinion, the most egregious of these were the endless efforts of Special Prosecutor Ken Starr to find something, anything, to pin on the Clintons. And Bill certainly gave him something, although I personally don't think that it was worth $70 million of taxpayer money to learn that the President was a less than ideal husband. Or a poor husband. Whatever.
But I digress. I wanted to say all that as a very long (too long? you make the call) introduction to what I was most interested in looking at: how the museum (I'm done with "center") handled the scandal and impeachment.
And probably I should pledge to reduce the number of parenthetical comments from now on. I'm going to try.
Anyway, the way they handled it was to describe the episode as a huge power struggle. Which it was. I will say that Clinton himself is more apologetic in his autobiography.
And since you are dying to know: no, we didn't see the blue dress.
They have a bunch of other very interesting exhibits, including a lot of letters sent to the President and Mrs. Clinton from various celebrities.
This display, for instance, has a letter from the Dalai Lama (on the right) next to a letter from Sheryl Crow.
They have a great bicycle on display, along with Clinton's letter jacket:
And a lot of quotations. Remember this one? "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right with America....we pledge to end an era of deadlock and drift..." From his lips to God's ear, please.
This being a museum, they have some special exhibits. There is an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. And then there was a good, if improbable, exhibit of Oscar de la Renta's fashions. Apparently he was a friend of the Clintons. They had some beautiful dresses on display, including some blue ones. Yes, I do have a sense of humor.
The morning had been chilly by Little Rock standards, which meant sunny and low 50's, but it was starting to warm up enough that we had a pleasant walk across an old railroad bridge that had been turned into a pedestrian bridge.
By then we were hungry. The friendly guard - and by "guard," I really mean "greeter" - told us that the museum restaurant was not open on weekends. We found this curious, since it would seem like the weekends might be the better time to have a restaurant open, if one had to choose. But the guard offered us an even better option: a Mexican place next door to the gift shop, a few blocks away, which was Bill Clinton's favorite place to eat in Little Rock.
I will smile along with my Republican friends at a couple of interesting business model decisions made at the museum. The first, of course, is the restaurant's hours of operation. The second is that the gift shop is about four blocks away. The museum is quite large and although it's an easy walk to downtown, most likely it wouldn't have fit in the central business district. But, the friendly guard said, President Clinton wanted the store to be in the downtown area proper to help with revitalization. They have a solar-enhanced shuttle, the kind you see at airports, running between the two. We took the shuttle to the restaurant, but when we realized how close it was, we walked back after lunch. Plus, and I will speak only for myself, I had eaten all the tortilla chips in Central Arkansas and therefore needed the walk.
Along the way we encountered this statue of Harriet Tubman. Arkansas was, logically, along some of the routes of the Underground Railroad.
It's hard to compare Presidential Libraries, because they're all so different from each other. Of the ones I've seen, I think I would rate Clinton's first, Wilson's second, Eisenhower's third, and LBJ's last although all of them have been well worth seeing. Wilson's edges Eisenhower's slightly only because of the incredibly eerie basement display of trench warfare. My parents have seen a ton of presidential libraries and my mother said that the George H.W. Bush Library in College Station is very good. Despite the assumptions of many, we Goldner women do try hard to be bipartisan, as well as cheery and helpful. I mention the point about the Bush Library because Clinton worked with Bush 41 to learn how to design a good library and based on my mother's assessment it sounds like he started with a good model.
Oh - we missed Bon Jovi by just a few minutes. He'd played a concert the night before and was in the museum when we were walking on the bridge. Timing is everything.
Then it was off to Central High School which Jennie pointed out is a building that we all recognize.
The school is immense and my camera couldn't get it all - there is more building on each side of this picture. The historic site itself is across the street, and like everything I've seen run by the National Park Service, is excellent.
One picture that I wanted to get, but didn't because it is creepy to take a picture of strangers, was of a group of ROTC students standing in front of the building. They were a very ethnically diverse group, including white, African-American, Asian and Hispanic kids, and it just seemed fitting for them all to be there.
An interesting point made at the historic site is that things were going okay, more or less, with the desegregation of Central High School until Governor Faubus went on TV the night before and riled up the segregationists. Certainly I don't know whether things were as hunky dory as this story implies, but it seems to be generally accepted that the Governor really made a mess of it. Apparently Faubus was trying to score political points with the right. Ironically, he'd worked for better schools earlier in his career but ordered the shutdown of Central High School for the following school year.
They have a beautiful painting in the historic site museum, which shows the National Guard protecting the students.
It might have been confusing to be a National Guardsman at that time: first you're ordered by the Governor to keep the black students out, and then literally overnight you are federalized and ordered by President Eisenhower to protect the students' right to go to school. I don't know whether the same National Guard troops did both, or if they brought in other units. If someone knows, can you please post a comment?
Across the street from Central High School is a very cool old filling station. It is part of the historic site. Jennie thought that maybe something historically significant occurred there. I thought that it just happened to be a very cool old filling station that somebody wanted to save, and since it was across the street from a National Parks Service facility anyway, why not just have them look after it? You couldn't go into the station so we never did find out the answer.
Jennie enjoys Little Rock, and I see why. And I am glad that the indirect route took me to Little Rock the way that it did.
And Ken, when you least expect me....
