Remembering ‘THE MAN’, Harry Truman

For many reasons Truman is considered one of the best presidents we have had. Much of which came from the fact he knew something about the real world. One of his better known sayings was something like, “I had a choice of being a piano player in a whore house or becoming a politician, there was not a whole lot of difference!”  Well it was something like that.

Harry and Bess great Missourians!

There are some things that happen in our lives completely by accident, that are heart warming. I was in the USAF in 1961-62 when President Kennedy extended all of us who were due to get discharged, it is called COG (Convenience of the Government!)

(You might remember when some reporter said something nasty about his daughter he was gonna go over there and whip his a$$, like any good dad!)

(You may not know it but Margaret wrote some good novels, I liked everyone I read)

At the end of my extension and the Cuban Crisis was over The USAF sent me to Richards-Gabaur AFB, near Kansas City for discharge. That process takes about a week. I only knew about three people in the KC area. I must have been visiting them. I just remember a uniformed man walking down the street carrying a lunch pail. Who ever I was visiting called his name and said, “Come over here I want to introduce to a guy getting out of the Air Force, he has already spent a hitch in the Marines.”

(Most are not old enough to remember that newspapers printed that Harry had lost the election!)

The guy was very amiable. he had started his Gov’t Career as a Marine. After introductions, I learned he was a guard at the Truman Library a few blocks away. I felt so privileged to be talking to a guy who was a retired Secret Service man. He had guarded Hoover, FDR and Truman. He retired when Truman left office. He said Harry called him in and asked if he still wanted to work for him.

(Harry was one of them!)

His response to me was, Of the presidents I served, Harry Truman was the only real man. He was the same in private and in the public.  No fancy foot work, he meant it when he said. “The buck stops here.”

We talked for about an hour. I liked Harry before that, but the stories he told, drew even more respect.

We will never again have a man like Harry Truman, a man who really knew what it was to work for a living. Of course I never met President Truman, but I sure felt impressed to talk to someone who had been his SS guard, and it was all by accident,  I never saw the man again.

My daddy did not like Truman, because he fired MacArthur, we disagreed on that. I felt Truman had no choice, he had to fire him, Douglas was getting too big for his britches(as they say down home), Truman was in charge.

Thanks for coming this way. 

Nite Shipslog

If flying is so Safe,
why do they call the airport the terminal?

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President Harry Truman and his wife Bess packed 11 suitcases and loaded them in a 1953 Chrysler New Yorker like this and drove them selves, no secret service, no pension to Independence, MO.

What does the car look like now?

In a barn somewhere in Kansas. Not restored, as Harry would have preferred. If you know more, let me know.