The Daily Vignette

The day is barely dawning, the first light setting a brilliant glow on the high mountain snowfields. Down below a small town sits tightly squeezed between a narrow lake and the steep hills of the valley. A early morning fog is rising off the still waters of the lake drifting past a slightly battered standard green highway sign stating this to be, "Ithill, Elevation 9,154 feet". All is quiet in the idyllic scene of the few dozen aging houses and storefronts.

Except for a squeaking coming from one wheel of a garden cart. It is being pushed by a reedy young man wearing a long black duster. He apparently uses the same hairstyling techniques as Einstein as his mass of sandy hair sticks up every which way. On one of his shoulders a crow sits rather calmly watching the scenery go by with apparent interest.

He turns his head towards you and says as he continues to push the cart, "I find that the best time of day for impractical schemes is first thing in the morning. That is if you actually want some chance of success." He leaves the cart laden with kegs, rope, wire, a bolt cutter, and various other implements to walk up to the back door of one of the better kept houses. He takes out a large ring of keys and lets himself in the back door before continuing in a quieter voice. "Which of course assumes you want to succeed. Most of why it works better in the morning is sobriety and surprise. Speaking of which..." He lets himself into the bedroom on the second floor and holds pulls out an old fashion horn with a squeeze bulb on the end and holds it near the visible ear of someone buried in blankets on the bed.

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Life in a Mausoleum

I was watching a program about the Jacqueline Kennedy story on PBS. The various commentators talk lovingly of how the White House was transformed into a museum under her leadership. Meanwhile I was silently horrified. To me her vision of an American Versailles sounds rather terrible; presidents above the people as our kings anointed by election. I suppose it was inevitable, but I find myself disliking her intensely. I like style, but I hate ossified and stifling tradition which is what she crated in this mania for historical objects.

And she steals the limelight from the president who really saved the White House. Harry S. Truman. He actually moved out of the White House for a time so it could be rebuilt on the inside. I doubt many other presidents would have had the courage to do that. All she did was decorate what Harry built.

If I were president would move out of the White House. If it must be a museum then let it be one, I would act as one of the people and live in a real house.