Our Travel Journal: Santa Monica, CA

First historical stop of the day was the sight of the first McDonald's. It is in San Bernardino and no longer sells hamburgers, but it is reasonably well preserved. This is where the McDonald brothers reopened the fast serve, no service, no dishes, no chairs nor tables, no nothing but burgers and fries restaurant. As a teenager lifeguarding at a pool, I used to send a young boy down to the local McDonald's for my lunch. I would get a double cheeseburger, which was the fanciest thing they made. This was before anyone was even thinking of a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder. I'd give the kid two dollars and he'd bring back my double cheeseburger, fries and a coke. He'd get a hamburger for himself, and he still had change for me. God, I loved those cheeseburgers!

This is not a political journal, and in today's politically divided country I almost don't want to mention that we visited the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda. I am posting it because more than anything this is an electronic scrapbook of the places we have gone, and the Nixon library is now one of them.

At Nixon's funeral, President Clinton stated "Let us finally judge him (Nixon) for the totality of his life". I believe that was said in earnest by a man who also wants to be judged the same way. The library did a good job of presenting him in the entirety of his public and private life. His presidency began with his efforts to disengage from the Vietnam War. In doing so, he opened up relations with both China and Russia. He was more active than any other president before him in the field of foreign relations. Domestically, for good or bad he established OSHA and tried to nominate the first woman to the supreme court (with Pat Nixon pushing him a little). All this said we all know how this ended and the library thoroughly presents this information also. I've visited the Truman Library in Missouri and the Johnson Library in Texas. Along with providing mountains of documents for historians to review, they have all provided a balanced picture of the namesake president.