Harry and Me, we Were Tight...

I remember the day vividly.

My Dad and Mom owned, and we lived at, the "Show Me Tourist Court" in Springfield, Missouri.  It was a motel located directly across the street from the Dixie Cup factory, which was huge, so their employees would stay with us sometimes.  It was located on Glenstone Boulevard, an 6-lane highway right down through the middle of town.

Which was convenient, as we could sit out on the front porch and watch the parades go by.  4th of July, Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, like that.

And I especially remember the one when Harry S. Truman, the-then President of the United States, was the featured guest in a parade.  Going right past my home.  And I was a little 6 year-old boy.

The crowd was huge!  Tens of thousands lined the boulevard to see Harry go by.  He was in a 1948 Chrysler Town & Country convertible.  A glistening forrest green with gorgeous wood paneling on the sides.  It was fantastic!  I was far more impressed with the car than the President.  I'm pretty sure my lifelong love of cars started on that very day.

And Presidential Parades were different back then.  Murdering Presidents wasn't yet in vogue.  So you could get up real close and personal.  Like, maybe 50 feet away as the POTUS rides by.  You could have hit him with a brick.  Or a paper airplane.  

And I recall no Secret Service types in black suits were running alongside, either.  

Perhaps under-protecting Presidents began right then...

So my Dad, ever the salesman, saw an opening.  He picked me up and made his way through the cops and the crowd to the edge of the ropeline.  And just as Harry's car drove slowly past, Dad lifted me up and said, "Here, Harry, here's your youngest supporter!"

Harry knew good politics when he saw it.  He stopped his driver and said, 

"Hoist that boy up here!  He needs to ride with me!"  

Harry sat me down on his lap and we drove all the way to the end of Glenstone Boulevard.  Maybe a mile and a half.  With Harry and me smiling, and waving at the crowd, and applauding with glee.  And my Dad followoing alongside.  What a trip!

(I should insert about here that Harry was a Democrat.  If you'll recall.  And I wasn't schooled enough in politics to know to avoid Democrats like the plague.  For some of what makes a Democrat a Democrat just might rub off on me.  But I've subsequently rationalized the error in Dad's judgement by appointing myself in retrospect a Young Ambassador From the "Makers, to the "Takers.")

Now, I could say I knew the true significance of that act, that day.  But I didn't.  Not until 1959 when Lyndon Baines Johnson was campaigning for Vice President.  And decided to come to Chillicothe, Missouri.  

He was on JFK's ticket and must have thought my farmer neighbors would go for his brand of politics (fat chance).  So he rented a flatbed hay wagon and a huge, overly large, gigantic International 806 tractor to pull it.  And advertised a campaign stop in a farmer's back lot.  Him campaigning from the flatbed, and then handing out cold beer to the couple of dozen attendees.  In the middle of a really hot summer day.  

(We went there only for the beer, BTW.)

LBJ shook everyone's hand on the way out, including mine.  So I can advertise to everyone that your friend and mine, Me, has shaken the hand of two Presidents of these Here Eeyyuuunited States.  

And they were both Democrats.  

Which I now offer up as an Olive Brach to all those who hate me simply because of the color of my skin...

I bask in your faint praise...