Your Name Here
Posted at 6:00 AM on February 15, 2010
by Dale Connelly
(42 Comments)
Many, many thanks to the guest bloggers who generously gave me a week off - Clyde, Beth-Ann, Anna, Joanne, Renee and Cynthia.
And Happy President's Day!
One of the modern perks of being President of the United States is that once you've served your time in office you won't have to go through the ordeal of downsizing, trying to figure out what to keep and what to throw away from the vast assortment of the garbage you've collected over the course of a (hopefully) long and (clearly) productive life. The matter is already settled. All your papers and everything you touched, including your childhood toys (Rosebud!), will be enshrined in your very own Presidential Library!
Presidential Libraries and Museums have been established to house the collected debris of the administrations of John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II (under construction).
Eisenhower's library is in Abeline, Kansas - his family home from about the time little Dwight was 2.
It has a crisp low profile with full-height columuns that add importance and an element of grandeur. The overall effect is serious but not too showy, in keeping with the image of our 34th president.
The JFK library is in Boston where he attended college. Kennedy picked the location personally just a few weeks before he was assassinated. Unlike the Eisenhower library, this facility calls attention to itself. In this picture, the I.M. Pei designed building is lit like a NASA rocket on the launch pad.
Herbert Hoover's library is in West Branch, Iowa. The building is one of several on the Herbert Hoover Historic Site, which includes the 2 room cottage where he was born. There are probably dentists' offices in suburban strip malls around Des Moines that look a lot like the Hoover library entrance pictured here.
The odds are good that no Trial Balloon readers will ever have to plan their own presidential library, but if you did ... where would you locate it and what would it look like?
Remember that any point in your life is fair game. Presidents are claimed by all the places they lived, even if they weren't very good presidents. But the libraries themselves speak to the nature of their time in office.
I think mine would be just outside Decatur, Illinois where I spent my formative teen years, and it would be built into the earth on a south facing hillside so it would be incredibly energy efficient and also mostly invisible, unless you were looking for it. People would say the Connelly Library is so appropriate for him - scrupulously unobtrousive. In four years he didn't give a single speech (that I can remember).
How about you?
Comments (42)
When I lived on the North Shore an older woman lived in town but had a cabin on a cliff 35 feet above Superior across the road from me. My next door neighbor and I would maintain her property in return for the right to use her private little beach and the cabin for guests. The bathroom was an outhouse about 30 feet back from the edge of the cliff, by her design so that you could sit with the door open and look at Lake Superior. That would be about right for me
i'd like it here in Blackhoof - a nice, new two-tone cream and green pole barn, with windows, good ventilation, and a big overhang to the south to block the summer sun and give the goats, uh, librarians a place to hang in the shade on a hot day. and no rats.
Like Clyde, I'd want to make sure that what the library looks out at is the most important (since the inside will likely be scarce...). And I've been lucky enough to do some wonderful traveling in my life and seen some magnificent scenery. So I'd like to have a small, thatched, unobtrusive hut in the South African bush, where elephants, lions, rhinos and wild dogs can wander by at will!
Good Morning All,
Me, President? Not a chance. Well if it ever happen, perhaps they could build something like the Corn Palace in S. Dakota which is covered with corn as my presidential library
I am a seed saver so I would ask them to use a selection of various colorful seeds to cover the building. I would be know as the seedy President. There would be a seed bank in the Seed Palace and the Place would be surronded by seed growing plots.
While I have done some traveling, spent a summer in Grand Marais after college, and lived in St. Paul for a handful of years, the vast majority of my years thus far have been in some neighborhood or other of southwest Minneapolis. Seems appropriate, then, to have my library in one of the funky old houses in those environs - something a little larger than my current abode (to house all of the detritus...er...collection), but cozy, homey, and filled with comfortable chairs for reading. Maybe something in the arts and crafts style with a view of Minnehaha Creek - not a soaring view, but quiet and contemplative. That'd work just swell for me. Oh, and it would need at least one basset hound wandering the stacks to keep people company (and also to provide a comfy dog to sit with them while they read).
My own library-could I have it now? I grew up in libraries. My mother said I read too much to buy books. I worked very hard to endear myself to the librarians in school and public libraries in Maryland where I grew up into a committed reader. As much as I adore Minnesota I have not been impressed with the libraries here. I think I would like my presidential library adjacent to my townhouse so I can borrow books without going outside.
Off topic - but related to the coffee songs - I have been reading up on Beethoven (for a music presentation for Daughter's kindergarten class). Apparently he was firm in his idea that a proper cup of coffee was made from exactly 60 beans. Not sure of the water ratio, but 60 beans. Might explain some of the more bombastic parts of his symphonies...
Good Morning Heartlanders!
The library they'll build in my honor will be a set of treehouses, with maybe eight pods, all connected with plank pathways with rope banisters. The pod roofs will be fairly flat and metal in order to amplify the sound of rain. Each pod would represent a different area of fascination for me, with books to match. The books would be in shelves from the floor to the ceiling of each pod. All pods will have so many windows you would always have the feeling of being outdoors. The pods will be cunningly designed to blend in with the trees, becoming nearly invisible. The site would be about where my Lake Superior cabin sits on a cliff overlooking the big lake.
You all are welcome to come up for coffee, a great book and a leather chair with a bolster.
what time, Steve? i'll bring the milk for the coffee
anna those kindergarteners are lucky to have you as a guest speaker. Perhaps one of them will grow up to be president and dedicate a room in the library to your inspirational presentation!
Beth-Ann - In the interest of full disclosure (is that presidential? not?), I am working from an established curriculum. I get materials to use, not use, etc. - so far they have been a leaping off point with lots of good biographical material. Last month was dancing trolls with Grieg (and, yes, I did get the class to dance like trolls), this month is Rock Star Beethoven...
I'd have to stick with my home, Albert Lea, as a location. It's what's defined me. Not sure what it would look like, but I'd want it to be energy efficient, with renewable energy to power it.
In our family vacations growing up, we visited three Midwest presidential libraries - Hoover's in West Bend, IA, Truman's in Independence, MO, and Eisenhower's in Abilene, Kansas. Hope to make a couple more sometime, FDRs would be interesting.
the idea of having a library is very appealing. to get to keep all th books in order on nice neat shelves where you can find them when you want them would be wonderful. my current library reminds me of the bookshelf in the odd couple's apartment. i remember the first time i saw oscars bookshelf i thought it was horrible, now i wish mine looked that good. my current house doesn't have anywhere for bookshelves. all windows and curved walls with nowhere to add shelves so the ones i have are bursting two or three books deep with the tops of those books stacked with the sideways books that will fit in the spaces.
my great grandfather bought land instead of saving in banks and he had a favorite piece on leach lake that he passed on to the family wher ewe have vacationed since i was a little boy. it is very peaceful and the sunrises in the different seasons are so memorable that i think thats where i would put it. having a library without the time to sit and reflect on what you are reading is not much use. the i m pei design does have an appeal with floor to ceiling windows to look out at the lake with floor to ceiling bookshelves with the rolling ladders you are supposed to have in libraries to get to the big art books on the top shelf that are wonderful to look at but seldom sat down to enjoy. the coffe table books could be set on coffee tables instead of being wedged in the open spots on the racks. coffee tea wine and a cigar area outside would be features for added bliss (morning anna) and the patio with firepit cantalevered over the hillside with the lake below would be the hangout of choice in all seasons. a steam room and sauna would be nice too don't you think? maybe make it kind of a spa reading retreat destination. come and chill out for a while with a book and a cup of something in a spot that feels nice in an i m pei sort of inspired way.
Correction - meant West Branch, IA for Hoover. The Grotto is in West Bend.
I think the most likely library in my honor and/or memory would be to leave my home as is and open it up to the public as an archealogical museum...people could dig for the information amongst the many piles of books and papers...
Luckily windows already look out over the pasture to the south where birds feed, coyotes wander, deer graze...i don't know if the curators would want to keep the cats, chickens, horses and goats or not...they could function as a petting zoo diversion for the children while parents found things to read.
clyde and steve, the libraries sound like spots i would want to hang out for sure. steve i can see the pods and hear the rain, anna i have a spare basset hound for you to use... quick please. sounds like the bravo program huh? good stuff. i will use 60 beans in my coffee at the leach lake retreat. interesting beethoven tidbit .barb i think no rats is good idea too. dale decauter il? near the iowa version? i love those hills, so unlike my minds eye picture of iowa.
I have seen five presidential libaries, all of which I mostly stumbled on in my travels. Dale, you posted three of my five. Also, Gerald Ford in GR MI and Truman. The people in my Boston hotel could not identify that building out of my window. I had to go up to it to find out. The Eisenhower one is very pleasant, in a very pleasant town, the best of K ansas towns I would say, with wide wide streets with hughe old homes set far back from the streets. The building somehow seens Ike-ish.
My Superior shore library comes complete with interior design. A really quite pleasant little building furnished with several of the Brown and Bigelow Hilda calendars. If you do not know of Hilda's zaftig delights with carefully placed clothing and other elements, you might want to Google "Hilda Calendar" and you can see my interior design plan.
Tim,
Decatur Illinois is probably very much like your impression of the least interesting parts of Iowa - flat, flat, flat. I suspect we would have a hard time finding a hillside of any kind for the site of my presidential library.
Maybe one of the banks on either side of a freeway overpass would do. Then the library would also overlook a lake (drainage pool).
Anna - wish I could have seen the kids dancing to Grieg. I used to do the music in the classroom program when my daughter was in 2nd and 3rd grade, and I got 3rd-graders to dance around to Mussorgsky's "Hut on Bird's Legs". So why do kindergartners and 3rd graders get to have all the fun?
Because I will never completely grow up, my presidential library will be located in a beautiful enchanted forest - could be Minnesota, Canada, or Germany - and it would be constructed of gingerbread and butter cream frosting. Visitors young and old would be invited to break off the cottage's sugary embellishments and either eat them or take them home as a souvenirs. They could take as much as they'd like because I was known as the sweetest and most generous of all presidents.
A little trivia today - I am related to George Washington. His mother's maiden name was the same as mine and many years ago my aunt had it traced and trust me, it's true. AND my mother's birthday is on the same day as George Washington's. A mere coincidence you say?? I think not.
People always argue with me when I say this, but the flattest place I know of, flat flat not rolling in any way, for a large expanse is central Illinois. Decatur is sort of the heart of that, isn't it Dale?
What would the Pengra palace be? A control room full of keyboards and one old turntop?
I'd have several. (Why not?)
The Duluth branches would be housed in a series of retired lakers tied up around the city. The S/S Edward L. Ryerson, the S/S E.M. Ford, and the S/S Wiliam A. Irvin. The libraries would be housed in the holds and the rest of the ships would be available for tours.
The other branch would be in Sandstone, housed in the elementary school. Any/all proceeds would go to the community, including maintaining Robinson Park along the Kettle River there.
Tim - It is the Bravo curriculum (gold star for you). After Beethoven we move to lighter stuff - Scott Joplin and Aaron Copeland. And when I get my library built, I will gladly take another basset. Perhaps when the dogs overrun my library I can come and appreciate the sun and quiet at yours. Right now, my hound is an only dog sorta guy - he prefers easy access to every lap in the house, free reign to sit on "his" chairs...he'll gladly play outside with other dogs, but would rather keep his domicile free of other canines (he puts up with the cats).
Sherilee - I prefer to think that while the elementary kids get to have a lot of fun, I get some too by being *that mom* - the one who gets to go into the class and do fun art and music and read and stuff, And then leave before I have to teach multiplication...
Jim--This is a very Pooka-ish post. There is, maybe was, an agronomist and plant/seed specialist at SDSU named, and Donna I am not lying about this, Dr. Turnipseed. His wife teaches, so she is Mrs. Turnipseed/
My library would be in Luverne, MN, since that is where I grew up. It would be made of the pink quartzite from the quarry up by the state park,, and would be noted for its collection of cookbooks and mystery novels. It would also hold my husband's books, which are far more presidential than mine- I must admit his History of the American Whig party-all 600 pages- is quite impressive, but deadly boring. he also collects hymnals from different denominations, and I suppose those would go in there, too.
hmmm, i'm liking some of these ideas---
our family has a little land up on Lake Superior, too, so that would be a likely place...although the 3-story village manor house we lived in during Dad's sabbatical in Eynsham, England (near Oxford) would make a fabulous library/spa/animal sanctuary combination...
yep, i'd want the cozy cafe, the outside smoking room, big beech trees to climb and read in, the sauna and steam room, beautiful views, funny nooks and crannies, and at least one room like a British gentleman's club reading room (and i do not mean what the current euphemism of "gentlemen's club" means in the US)...
marvelous--i'd like to go there now!
although donna's idea has me thinking, too--once when in England i visited where AA Milne lived and wrote the Pooh books, and actually got to climb up to the Enchanted Wood (at least, what the illustrator used for a model)--that would be a great place for the gingerbread house...
off work for presidents day today!
Donna-I don't think it's the least bit coincidental-how impressive. All i can claim is being distantly related to Lawrence Welk!
great song, dale, to play bill withers "lovely day"--brings a good feel to the morning...
i have a friend who sticks by the story that a man whose last name was califlower married a woman named ieata (i never thought to ask for spelling) so her name was i eat a coliflower. she could work at jims seed palace too.
kay i love that english gentlemans dark wood with nooks and crannies and overstuffed furniture with fireplaces and such. nice picture.
Clyde - I have NEVER taken you for a liar.
Kay H. - I'd be willing to relocate my library to England. Good call. I'm off on this lovely day, too.
Renee - Lawrence Welk would be a wonderful wonderful relative!
Lora and I watched Harvey last night. First time for me, and I can see why Tim and Clyde have SO MUCH to say about it, for what's it been now, close to a week? A little while ago I looked up pooka on encyclopediabrittanica.com and it pretty much says that pooka and puck are one and the same.
So I am wondering, of course, if T and C agree. Another interesting thing - a bubble popped up on that site that advertised personalized hockey pucks. If a puck and a pooka are similar, I am tempted to order a hockey puck with an image of a 6ft, 3 & 1/2 in. rabbit on it. Then when people come over and ask, "Well, well, what do you have there?", I could say, " What - you've never seen Harvey??" (I don't claim to have the brightest of friends, locally anyway.)
I can tell this is a holiday-my brain is working at half speed and I keep remembering things that I want to say after I've posted. Clyde, there was an Episcopal clergyman in Fargo some years ago who was titled "The Very Reverend Harry ....something or other, and in the phone book he was allegedly listed as listed as "The very Harry Reverend" I think Mrs. Professor Turnipseed should have kept her own name when she married.
When you get into hockey pucks, you are getting into Don Rickles territory.
I know the word pooka pre-exists the play but for me the play is ALL in re pookas.
Sue Turnipseed loves her name that way.
My wife had a cousin Janet Dorr who eloped with Edward Knock. So they sent out the marriage announcements as per form as "Mr. Edward Knock and Mrs Janet Door Knock announce . . .
We have a lot of people of Czech and German ancestry here, and I love having to deal with Mr. Dvorak, Mrs. Schubert, Mr. Czerny add the whole Hondl family.
Since I am almost all German and my wife is half Russian, we lov the ancestry of your area, and that museum there. We went there a couple of times before my daughter moved away. As near as I can tell there is no other person in the US with my first and last name, but there is or was a Clydela there with my last name. Clyde is bad, but Clydela???
I love Finnish names. A man moved into NE MN from the south to teach high school. First day in first class he starts to call the roll. The first two names are Aho and Ahola and he thinks I am not saying either of those names. The kids of course were so used to the names they did not see anything in them. Then later down the lsit was the name Frikken, which again the kids were so used to that they did not react when he was unwilling to say it.
Pardon me for stating the obvious, but Pukka is a wonderful dog's name. That was the name my former wife gave to her first dog. The name is cute, and yet if you want to bellow and be heard a hundred yards away that "ooo" sound really carries (which is why people yell "boooo" at umps).
I've rethought the personalized hockey puck and feel that I have not given my local friends enough credit to think they would not recognize the image of Harvey the Rabbit, so for more intrigue, perhaps it should be personalized to say puck on one side and pooka on the other. OR because I commonly mix things up, it could say pook on one side and pucka on the other. That would be a puzzle, huh Heartlanders?
Some of my favorite names out her are the ones that develop when a person with a Norwegian name marries someone from one of our local Indian tribes-Whiteowl Gunderson, for example,is such a great last name.
Is this the only method I have for telling you what I think?
I have been listening to Radio Heartland since the very beginning and fought very hard to get it.
I don't want to hear repeats of Prairie Home Companion or American Routes. I listen to them on Saturday and Sunday (Prairie Home) and don't need to hear them again for the 3rd time.
Also, I don't want to hear the entire Thistle and Shamrock or Mountain Stage. Selections from each show are fine, but I want to hear only Radio Heartland.
Why did you change the format?
I wrote a poem about 12:15 today, but I do not think I will post it.
Clyde - I was mulling over some prose in my own little head at about the same time - thought better of posting as well.
Hello Marguerite,
Thanks for your comment about the programming.
I decided it would be a good idea to add A Prairie Home Companion, American Routes, Mountain Stage and The Thistle and Shamrock to our schedule to get more personality into Radio Heartland.
Musically, the shows are sympathetic to what we're already doing, and financially they represent an inexpensive way to add other human voices and fresh viewpoints to the mix.
I'm sorry to hear that you don't like the change.
If you'd like to contact me directly, you can do so by sending an e-mail to dale@radioheartland.org.
Thanks for listening and for taking the time to leave a comment.
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock