Harry Truman wasn't exactly planning on becoming president. He's a senator, and he heads the Truman committee, which looked into military wastefulness, and then boom, FDR dies and he's the president. This is all thoroughly depicted in the HBO original movie "Truman" starring Gary Sinise. This movie, according to Wikipedia, was made in 1995 and I very distinctly remember watching it. I'm will readily admit that sometimes when I think of Harry Truman I think of Gary Sinise first. I'm not ashamed by that. But I digress.
Anyways, Truman had only been vice-president for less than a hundred days and then he's president. All sorts of crazy crap is going on, like the war and the Manhattan Project and who knows what else. He has to deal with that and then the guy is really tired. His doctor orders him to get some R&R. So he heads to Key West . Now I think we are beginning to see why he is one of our most esteemed presidents.
Truman just had the best time in Key West , hitting on girls on their spring break and drinking really strong margaritas with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway. No, I joke. Hemingway was still alive at this point, and Truman actually didn't leave the military compound, it sounds like. But he returned to the same house 11 times over the course of his presidency, taking working vacations there that totaled 175 days. Now it is known as the Truman Little White House. So off my family went to see it.
Here is what it looks like:
When you take the tour, first you watch a video about Truman and his relationship with Key West . He liked to wear crazy tropical shirts and have a parrot sit on his shoulder (only one of those things is true). Each morning he would go for a brisk walk, have a good breakfast, and then settle in to do work with a military stenographer. He worked on the Marshall Plan and civil rights executive orders there. He had supreme court justices and other bigwigs down to play poker with him. At night he might watch some newsreels or listen to some records. Maybe he'd go fishing. It sounds like kind of idyllic life, as far as being the president goes.
And it was kind of idyllic house to do it in. On the tour, you see Bess Truman's bedroom (she might need her own in case the president was called away in the middle of the night to do something presidential) as well as her awesome deck for reading and card-playing. That deck was so awesome in fact that it was kind of hard to remember that the house wasn't air-conditioned back in the day and might not always have been a pleasant place to sit.
Then you see the president's room; Truman insisted on a daybed so that he could take a nap without disturbing his ready-made bed. Good thinker, that Truman. Also good thinking: the way he set up his bar. He had a bar that was kind of set back into another room. The wood that made up the bar also made up his custom poker table, which had a lid so that you could cover the poker table and have tea. In case you were a delicate, easily shocked lady or something, as apparently Bess Truman was. Additionally, there was a very nice dining room and a living room that had the man's desk, complete with a sign that told you exactly where the buck stopped.
Truman's the focal point of the tour (our very excellent tour guide called Truman his hero) but Truman's not the only president to go to the Little White House. The first president to go was actually Taft, and after Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton all visited. Kennedy even discussed the Bay of Pigs there with the British Prime Minister. Colin Powell held peace talks at the house and there's an open invitation to any president or dignitary who might like to stay there. But no matter who visits, it seems that house will always belong to Truman. Perhaps because he loved it so, and because he wore so many tropical shirts. Perhaps because they already invested in restoring all that furniture from the Truman era.
Anyways, as I mentioned at the beginning, this stop ended up being one of everyone's favorite stops during the entire cruise. In part, it's because our tour guide was such a good, entertaining storyteller, and in part, it's because a president could vomit on a street corner in 1874 and that would become something my family would like to see. (How I wish Truman had vomited on a street corner in Key West) If you find yourself in the middle of that spectrum, then I think you would like this place. Even if you're not obsessive about your presidential landmarks, it's impressive to see that desk where he worked, complete with his sign that let you know about the buck and its stopping.
Here I am, giving Harry hell:
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