I wouldn't mind going to a school like that. Would you? Then we saw the home his family moved to when he was 5. Here's his sisters' room:
And here's Lyndon's room:
And here's a look at his grave:
December 22, 2023
In the land of LBJ.
We drove out into the hill country to see the birthplace of President Lyndon Johnson:
I wouldn't mind going to a school like that. Would you?
And here's Lyndon's room:
And here's a look at his grave:
I wouldn't mind going to a school like that. Would you?
And here's Lyndon's room:
And here's a look at his grave:
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61 comments:
Those right angles on the schoolroom stove pipe worry me.
Guessing the crapper had no door?
Hey, hey! LBJ!
But it's a good thing that liberals fought tooth and nail to defeat Goldwater, because he was going to end the world by starting a war with the USSR! It's amazing how easily manipulated democracies are. It's the same playbook they are using against Trump. "He's going to start WWIII" will it's actually Joe Biden that has dragged NATO into a war that NATO is likely to lose, and can't afford to lose, and you know what happens next, escalation! More weapons! Deadlier weapons!
Is that an outhouse to the right of the school house?
"LBJ shat here."
Neat. I liked Texas in winter. It's all brown, but still...
Beautiful country - go back when the Blue Bonnets are a'bloom. Then it's spectacular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgAzNm21Lwg
That's a comparatively modest gravestone for a U.S. President. My dad told me that we visited that site when I was a child. We were native Texans and at least early in his presidency, LBJ was a local hero for most Texans.
I'm just a few miles north in Burnet. Should've stopped by, the wife was baking cookies today.
Fredricksburg is a great Hill Country town, with Adm. Nimitz' birthplace and The National Museum of the Pacific War. A great feature is seeing the battledress worn by Eugene Sledge, later a PhD professor of ornithology, but most famous from his memoir "With the Old Breed" and his portrayal in the Spielberg series "The Pacific".
I had LBJ at the top of my list of worst presidents of my lifetime, but Biden surpassed him in the first year of his presidency.
I would have loved attending that school. It would make a great contemporary home now. The bedrooms remind me of visiting my grandparents in rural Illinois in the early 50's. I remember a white porcelain potty under the bed.
"And here's a look at his grave:"
Spit on it for me while you're there.
Bastard drafted me right in the middle of final exam week.
Those benches arranged around the iron stove must have been a comfort on a freezing midwinter morning.
Would I mind attending that one-room school? Not in the least, given the state of public education in this nation since the creation of the Federal bureaucracy. Modern schools have failed miserably to produce the kind of productive and informed citizen worthy of self-government. Instead, we get confused and ignorant social parasites.
Very nice, I love seeing these old places and the humble beginnings our politicians used to have.
"Spit on it for me while you're there."
I just recited the last lines of Dylan's "Masters of War."
"Very nice, I love seeing these old places and the humble beginnings our politicians used to have."
It looked damned nice for poverty. A house this good, in Austin, would cost over a million. Young people today can only hope to have a 3-bedroom house with a big dining room and a kitchen and living room and home office plus 3 or 4 porches.
The Chester A Arthur orphanage is not far from me. It's a replica of the original, which rotted away. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't make a long trip to do so.
Lying Bird Johnson. His presidential library on the UT campus suits the man--big, white, blandly imposing, designed to make the observer feel small.
He was probably the most psychologically twisted president we've had. I'm not sorry he didn't run in '68, but he got halfway into the Big Muddy when he decided to turn back while telling everyone else to keep going. But he had his very substantial bundle, so there's that.
The homeplace looks like genteel poverty at worst; a comparable house might well fetch a cool mill in Austin, but as I learned in real estate, location, location, location.
The Texas hill country from about Dripping Springs through Johnson City and over to Fredericksburg is lovely, especially in springtime with all the bluebonnets. The area was settled by Germans in the mid 1800's. One of the leaders of the German settlers, John Meusebach, entered into a peace treaty with the Penateka Comanches in 1847 that was never broken by the white man (probably because there was no gold in the Texas hills). It is believed to be the only treaty with that claim. As late as 1870 Comanches raided some farms north of Fredericksburg and absconded with several young children. One of them, Herman Lehmann, was with the Comanches (and later with an Apache tribe) for nine years before being returned to his family. By that time, of course, he considered himself to be an Indian and lived the rest of his life, like many other white children who were kidnapped by Indians, in a shadow land between the white man's world and the world he felt he truly belonged to. He eventually was adopted by Comanche chief Quanah Parker and given some land in Oklahoma, but eventually returned to Loyal Valley (just north of Fredericksburg) where he ended his days.
Years ago I visited and our bus was welcomed by Lady Bird waving at us from the front doo. Such a lovely woman and a great credit to the State of Texas. LBJ, not so much.
I dislike the phrase "bucket list", but after reading all of Caro's books on LBJ, visiting his childhood and adult homes are on my list.
While in the "area", I'd go to Tulsa, the only other place in the US that beckons me.
I did attend that school in 1960. Mrs Potter's 2nd grade class. Several classrooms of St Paul's Catholic school were one room with a privy. I got my paddling, had my first crush on a red haired girl, practiced duck and cover and helped keep coal in the stove. I hated Mrs Potter and the years haven't been kind to my memories of her lo these 63 years down the road of life.
As I recall, in San Marcos, when they renamed “Colorado Avenue” to “Lyndon Johnson Boulevard “, the hatred of LBJ was so strong that the local Chevy dealer moved his dealership. Its address had been “Colorado Avenue” and he was damned if he was going to have an address honoring LBJ. It was personal!
Robert Caro's massive multi-part biography of Johnson is must reading.
Besides learning that he stole almost every election he was in (or maybe all of them) and besides learning of his cowardly behavior in college and during WWII, we learn that the week JFK was shot LIFE ran the first of a two-part feature series on his corrupt political doings. The day of the assassination a Congressional subcommittee was meeting to discuss his corruption while in the Senate. Of course, when he became president, LIFE killed the second part of the feature, and the committee never met again.
The reason Connolly rode in JFK's car was Kennedy didn't want to be seen with LBJ and likely planned to replace him on the ticket with Connolly.
History is strange.
Whenever I think of LBJ, I think of the South Texas Parr family, the Duke of Duval county, and how they bought an election for LBJ that propelled his political career. All good Texas Democrats.
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
How appropriate in 2023. Its odd that two of the greatest egomamanics and warmongers to ever sit in the White House (FDR and LBJ) also did more economically for the average person, especially seasoned citizens than anyone else. So, nobody all bad, although Biden is trying.
That aside, LBJ's house looks pretty nice.
BTW, I prefer snow and trees (and cold) to the bleak cloudy brownness of a Texas winter.
"We’ve already got someone here to take your place
The day that they blew out the brains of the king
Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing
It happened so quickly - so quick by surprise
Right there in front of everyone’s eyes"
From reading one of the Caro books on LBJ, he complained bitterly about being poor. He had a sweet grift going with some radio stations.
And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I'll follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
Probably the ugliest of all our presidents, inside and out.
I am told the best Texas BBQ is in the Hill Country.
Kate said:
>Those right angles on the schoolroom stove pipe worry me
We had a pipe like that in an old schoolhouse near my childhood farm. I think the purpose was that it heated the entire room.
Via Reddit: “Every year, LA County holds a public burial of the "unclaimed dead" 1,937 people laid to rest from 2020.”
link to short video
When I die I’m leaving instructions for my ashes to be donated to good will.
It’s just the kind of guy I am. Thinking of others who may not have anybody’s ashes to memorialise.
Reminds when C-Span Brian Lamb took a “school bus” to every presidential grave site with a camera crew and a historian in tow.
That was some must-see riveting television.
'A Texan looks at Lyndon' is quite a polemic, if you can find a copy. It flooded the newsstands in the run-up to the election, and it sold a few hundred thousand copies, if I recall correctly. It created quite a buzz.
I would opine that Johnson was not loved in Texas. He was generally liked by people that endorsed the idea of a Texan being President or Vice President. But his dirty back-room politics, and his propensity for shady deals and stolen votes, was well-known by the Texas power brokers. They didn't like or trust him, and for good reasons.
Lady Bird, for all of her charms and wildflower graces, was no shrinking violet either. She amassed quite a fortune in radio stations, procured at very deep discounts through the benefit of Lyndon's political clout. The stories go on and on when it comes to Lyndon and his schemes, up to and including organizing the going-away party for President Kennedy, IYKWIMAIKTYD.
Since I don't see another post labeled "Cafe," I'll just put this here:
Clyde's Top 15 Favorite "New" Songs of 2023 - #9 - "The Stowaway and the Endless Night" - Gandalf's Fist - A Day in the Life of a Universal Wanderer (Special Edition) (2017)
In January, I had a song come up on a Discovery Mix titled "Widdershins" by Gandalf's Fist, which had come off of their latest album from 2022. It was a longish prog-rock track, and I liked it, so I first listened to the album and then said, "What else do you have?" and listened to their other albums. Gandalf's Fist is an English progressive rock band that has been around since 2005 with some lineup changes, and leans toward dramatic albums with lengthy dialogue to advance the story. 2016's The Clockwork Fable album was a rock-opera over three hours long, spanning three discs, telling the story of a post-apocalyptic society living underground with some people thinking it was time to reemerge on the surface. The extensive dialog made it almost impossible to listen to at work.
The next album I listened to was the 2017 Special Edition of A Day in the Life of a Universal Wanderer, a space-rock concept album that ran a comparatively short 67 minutes. The original version of the album came out in 2013, and the Special Edition added some interstitial dialog between songs for story exposition, as well as a lengthy new track, "The Stowaway and the Endless Night." I really, really liked this album, and a number of the songs appear on my list of most-played songs of 2023.
In my opinion, the album should be experienced in its entirety, and I was really torn about which song to include for this countdown. I thought about one of the songs that I heard frequently, like "The Nine Billion Names of God" or "Orphans of the Sky," and I also considered the grand finale at the end, "The Wanderer Goes South." (If you've read much Science Fiction, then you probably recognize some of those song titles as also being the titles of novels.) In the end, I wanted to give you something that had Melissa Hollick's vocals on it, so I went with the new track that was added in 2017. If you find this track interesting, then seek out the entire album on YouTube or wherever you stream your music. If you don't like it, just chalk it up to "that weird stuff Clyde likes to listen to."
Gandalf's Fist - The Stowaway and the Endless Night
Bonus song: "The Battle for Tannhäuser Gate" - Gandalf's Fist - A Day in the Life of a Universal Wanderer (Special Edition) (2017)
Gandalf's Fist - The Battle for Tannhäuser Gate
LBJ gained more fame from picking up Him and Her by their floppy ears than from the failed glory of his Great Society that has continuously been deducted from paychecks ever since.
On March 8, 1965, he Americanized the Vietnam War sending 3,500 US Marines ashore onto the beaches at Da Nang. By the end of 1965, 184,000 of our troops were fighting in 'Nam. When LBJ left office on January 20, 1969, 568,000 troops were fighting the Viet Cong "over there." Those of us who served at any time during the Vietnam Era know full well that this was "Johnson's War."
Another tour would be his purloined ranch where he made Secret Service personnel run behind his car and refill his glass with whisky and ice by rattling the emptied last glass out the window. Without stopping the car.
A terrible, abusive, sociopathic man.
"Another tour would be his purloined ranch...."
We saw the ranch too. Also "Air Force One-Half."
I just didn't like the photos I happened to take.
"They have a mighty funny understanding of what a dictator is. Apparently if you free your country and deregulate everything that made it a living hell, you are a dictator to the left. The real dictators, of course, like Fidel Castro or whoever the heck has succeeded him, always get pilgrimages, always get passes.
But Milei to slashes regulation to allow the private sector to finally breathe and blossom, well, he's the dictator.
Obviously, the left has a thing against freedom. The more it's handed out, the more upset it gets.
Sound like anyone north of Argentina that you might have heard of?
We learn a lot about the left here in the states just by watching how they react in Argentina.
And if this is a dictator, let's have more of them."
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/12/argentinas_milei_proves_to_be_the_worlds_strangest_dictator_handing_out_freedom_all_over_the_place.html
"What if I lived in Austin and I had a white girlfriend? It's possible in Austin. As a matter of fact, some people say it's necessary,..."
- Dave Chappelle
Joe Biden DID THIS.....Enjoy the downfall, the invaders will soon be invading YOUR neighborhoods....
"“There’s definitely an invasion of immigrants from Floyd Bennett Field in our neighborhood and I see them sitting outside stores … outside the mall and going around to all the houses in the neighborhood, knocking on the door looking for money,” the retiree said.
“I certainly sympathize with their situation, but to have people knocking at your door looking for food that don’t speak English, it’s annoying. I don’t like it. We have never had this before, ever,” he continued."
https://nypost.com/2023/12/22/metro/migrants-at-nycs-floyd-bennett-field-are-begging-nearby-residents-for-money-food/
Byron Donalds
@ByronDonalds
·
Dec 21
Joe Biden can say an entire race of people isn’t legitimate if they don’t vote for him and the left is silent. And you want me to be mad at Trump for saying millions of illegal immigrants are changing the fabric of our nation?
Please spare me the outrage.
A hateful bigot who had no problem calling a spade a spade. Only he didn’t use spade now did he?
In 97 my daughter spent a summer internship at Texas A&M. Driving around, I found Rush Limbaugh on the radio...
KLBJ, his old radio station.
I remember thinking that there is at least some poetic justice in the world
John Henry
55 thousand dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of dead Vietnamese, all because of a stolen election-of LBJ to the asenate.
Good news story of the day: The WaPoo is laying off hundreds of staffers.
Big Mike said...
"Bastard drafted me right in the middle of final exam week."
Every Vietnam vet I've ever talked to hates him with a passion. Him and McNamara.
Big Mike said...
"Bastard drafted me right in the middle of final exam week."
Every Vietnam vet I've ever talked to hates him with a passion. Him and McNamara.
Althouse writes, "We saw the ranch too. Also 'Air Force One-Half.'"
Goldfinger also had a Lockheed Jetstar, ably flown by Pussy Galore.
You got that right, Rusty.
The Big Swinging D*** and the Bean Counter put most of the names up on that sunken Wall in D.C. I went there to see old friends, one cloudy Sunday afternoon. Looking along the length of the gash in the ground I could see the Washington Monument standing high in the distance. How in the hell did we fall so far?
It's only gotten worse.
, all because of a stolen election-of LBJ to the asenate
Nope.
He stole the 1948 primary and nomination to run for senate.
John Henry
Does anyone know the name of the Texas trees shown in these photos? They are everywhere in Texas, and I have yet to find someone who knows what they are called.
The trees are live oaks.
"I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.""
Pretty much.
But he was clearly moved by JFK getting his head blown apart.
Alt house replied to my arboreal question: The trees are live oaks.
Thank you!
Every Vietnam vet I've ever talked to hates him with a passion. Him and McNamara.
Do not get me started on McNamara. How anyone can adopt a strategy of fighting a war of attrition in a humid jungle and yet send men into combat with a rifle not adapted for combat in a high humidity environment (e.g., barrels not chrome lined), is beyond me (not to mention ammunition prone to fouling the barrel). Men died because they were sent into jungle combat with guns that were prone to jamming.
Gen X here so no memory of LBJ at all, and of course I didn't know Dylan's Masters Of War so looked up the lyrics Ms Althouse recited over LBJ's grave and ... daayamm, that's cold.
I get why you all hated him and man the passions run deep, but all I know of him was studying the history of the Vietnam War at college in the late 80's and then reading Caro's books, which I found fascinating.
I guess thus is how conversations about Trump will go in the 2070's.
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