(The diner on the grounds of the Gilmore Museum near Kalamazoo, MI. Amazing place).
Upon return late yesterday from an extended journey on America’s crumbling infrastructure, I got a note from Senior Executive Jerry tinged with concern. He had not heard from me since the 4th, and thought I might be trapped in the seat belt of the Panzer, hanging upended in the seat belt after hurtling off the Pennsylvania Turnpike at one of the interminable Jersey Barrier walls near Johnstown.
It was close, but the trip actually went splendidly.
I have good news for you. And some bad news. Yes, I am alive and well. Depending on your perspective, that fact might be either.
I saw things of wonder on the trip, the first among them being my incredibly talented Grandson. I respect his desire to have a minimal footprint on the strange beast that is the Internet, so I will refrain from blasting you with endless really cute pictures.
(Hunter House. Best sliders anywhere!)
Another might be the most excellent sliders at the Hunter House diner on Old Woodward Avenue in my home town of Grabbingham.
There were other wonders beyond the miracle that is an infant and the tang of a slider I first tasted in 1962. That includes the Gilmore Car Museum, outside placid Kalamazoo, where someone apparently left their gal.
The Museum’s Internet footprint is fairly significant already, and I posted a bunch of the shots on social media for your enjoyment. The museum has a remarkable collection of vehicles on a frankly exceptional campus, with replica period gas station, diner, and three replica car dealerships. Hundreds of outstanding car are on display, and during the car season, as many as 400 will roll in on Wednesday evenings and gather around the Diner, which opens to serve authentic burgers, dogs and classic milk-shakes.
Arriving at the Museum in a Porsche Carrera was just icing on the cake, which included the wine cellar(s) to which we repaired immediately after the visit. I highly recommend a magnum of Chateau Lafitte Rothschild ’76, finished off after a splendid meal with an ancient 1908 bottle of Madeira. Which is to say, something very special indeed. West Michigan is a magical place, at least in the summer, and it is a good thing to have friends.
So, there was all that, and something else on the road home. As I have mentioned before, I have been looking for the combat record of the 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, OH, is one of the places that such records- the ones beyond the spare unit diary might be found.
(The Hayes residence, Fremont, OH. Feels like coming home).
While not a formal part of the Presidential Library system, it is a shrine that includes the President’s residence, a sprawling red brick Victorian pile and the more modern Museum and Library next door.
The whole town is like that. The houses are quaint and look like they would be fun to restore. Or maybe it is because they evoke a certain Ohio charm as alien now as Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine.
Rutherford Hayes has a life story worth checking out, particularly in light of the current national struggle over the legacy of the War Between the States. As president, Hayes oversaw the end of Reconstruction, began to end Jackson’s Spoils System by initiating civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the wounds of war.
(Don’t mess with this former President of the United States).
Hayes had been an attorney and city solicitor of Cincinnati when the war broke out in 1861. He was lukewarm on the idea of war to restore the Union. Considering that the positions of the two sides might be irreconcilable, he suggested that the Union just “let them go.”
Nonetheless, he left a fledgling political career to answer the call to the colors as a Union Officer, and had a distinguished record in his days in uniform with the Kanawha Brigade. He was wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain. He earned a reputation for bravery in combat and was promoted to the rank of major general before it was over.
After the war, he served in the U.S. Congress, as a three-term Governor of Ohio, and in 1876, was elected to the Presidency the most contentious and confused elections in national history. At least until Bush v. Kerry.
You will recall that Hayes lost the popular vote to Democrat Sam Tilden, but eventually triumphed in a hotly-contested electoral college vote after a Congressional commission awarded him twenty contested electoral votes. The result was the Compromise of 1877, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes’s election on the stipulation that the new President end all U.S. military involvement in Southern politics.
So, things could have been very different today, had Mr. Lincoln just let the South go its way, or if Tilden had been elected as a populist Democrat only twelve years after Appomattox.
(The Hayes Museum and Library. The staff is very nice).
Anyway, the library was the building in front of which I was standing at 0900 yesterday morning, and I left two hours later for Washington with a sheaf of Xerox copies of 72nd OVI records and headed back toward the capital.
The traffic snarl started 74 miles away. You know, the sort where you suddenly realize that the brake lights ahead do not mean that people are slowing down on the interstate and the hypnotic tranquility of the flowing concrete is punctuated by the stark terror that they are really just stopped and you hit the brakes as hard as you can and wonder if you should head for the ditch while peering desperately in the rear view to see of the moron behind you has noticed the crisis or is going to be in the front seat with you.
Anyway, that is neither here, nor there, and I was in the pool treading away the stress before the night fell, safe and sound.
But the rest of the bad news? Great-Great Uncle Patrick and Great-Great Grandfather James were waiting for me when I checked the mail. The National Archives, in a remarkable display of efficiency, had burned both their service records to discs and I can drag you across Mississippi and Georgia as they fought their wars, fell in love, and left the fight. It is bad news only for me- I am going to write about it, though of course you don’t have to read it.
More on that tomorrow. There may be something else to talk about, though.
Author’s Note: T he Zombie Apocalypse may have started today: Chinese stock market down a third in the last month, efforts to stop the slide by the central government are not working, a third of all that fancy new construction stands empty, then United Airlines says this morning that a computer glitch shut down all its flight activity, and the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading this morning. Another glitch, they say.
One thing is an event; two things looks like a trend, and three things means someone is under attack.
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303