I'll be at the Dixon, Illinois farmhouse with Gary until Monday. Other than visiting Aunt Shirley at a nursing home, there doesn't seem much to do in the city. There are no good hiking trails in the winter and no malls to walk around. We wind up going to Walmart every day to walk around and around. I would walk on the road in front of the house, but we had freezing snow last night. I don't want to break a leg on an icy road before I get a chance to reach the Gulf of Mexico.
Looking for something to do this weekend, I asked Gary about going to see President Reagan's boyhood home. I've passed by it many times during visits to Dixon but I haven't been inside yet. I assumed it was run by the National Park Service like so many Presidential homes, but when we looked into it, we found it was privately run..
My Senior Pass is good any any national park, national monument or government run Presidential home but here but at the Reagan home, we would have to pay a fee. Since neither of us were Reagan fans, Gary said we should not go. He figures I would make some kind of obnoxious comment and get us thrown out.
Besides, if I want to go to an historical place, he told me, this weekend I was living in one. When Reagan was in college, one of his chums was a cousin of Gary's father, so they often stopped by the farmhouse. My, I said, looking around the parlor, Reagan was in here? Not so. Reagan came to the kitchen door to say hello, but was never considered important enough to go on to the fancier room. He was just an Irish kid who got to hang out with a boy with a respectable German heritage.
I looked around the kitchen. The chairs are really old. So Reagan sat in one of those chairs? Nope, said Gary. I doubt he was ever asked to sit down.
Well, at least he stood on this very floor, I said. No, says Gary, the linoleum is new (meaning only fifty years old).
At least while he was here, he was looking at those old cabinets and the wood stove, I said, and he allowed as that was probably true, though the paint on the cabinets was likely no more than thirty years old.
However, this makes the kitchen historic, so I took a photo.
Gary said to avoid mentioning the address or he would be over run with Reagan pilgrims. So that ends today's history lesson.
Looking for something to do this weekend, I asked Gary about going to see President Reagan's boyhood home. I've passed by it many times during visits to Dixon but I haven't been inside yet. I assumed it was run by the National Park Service like so many Presidential homes, but when we looked into it, we found it was privately run..
My Senior Pass is good any any national park, national monument or government run Presidential home but here but at the Reagan home, we would have to pay a fee. Since neither of us were Reagan fans, Gary said we should not go. He figures I would make some kind of obnoxious comment and get us thrown out.
Besides, if I want to go to an historical place, he told me, this weekend I was living in one. When Reagan was in college, one of his chums was a cousin of Gary's father, so they often stopped by the farmhouse. My, I said, looking around the parlor, Reagan was in here? Not so. Reagan came to the kitchen door to say hello, but was never considered important enough to go on to the fancier room. He was just an Irish kid who got to hang out with a boy with a respectable German heritage.
I looked around the kitchen. The chairs are really old. So Reagan sat in one of those chairs? Nope, said Gary. I doubt he was ever asked to sit down.
Well, at least he stood on this very floor, I said. No, says Gary, the linoleum is new (meaning only fifty years old).
At least while he was here, he was looking at those old cabinets and the wood stove, I said, and he allowed as that was probably true, though the paint on the cabinets was likely no more than thirty years old.
However, this makes the kitchen historic, so I took a photo.
Gary said to avoid mentioning the address or he would be over run with Reagan pilgrims. So that ends today's history lesson.
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