Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
didn't make it back to base. It is a pity, verging on the criminal, that so much of the town
of Gettysburg has been spoiled with tourist tat and that it is so visible from the battlefield.
When I was little, my dad bought me a Union cap and a toy rifle and let me loose on the
battlefield. I was in heaven. I dashed about the whole day crouching behind trees, charging
over to Devil's Den and Little Round Top, blowing up parties of overweight tourists with
cameras around their necks. My dad was in heaven too because the park was free and there
were literally hundreds of historical plaques for him to read. Now,, however, I just found it
boring.
I was about to depart, feeling guilty that I had come so far without getting anything much
out of the experience, when I saw a sign at the visitors' center for tours to the Eisenhower
home. I had forgotten that Ike and Mamie Eisenhower had lived on a farm just outside
Gettysburg. Their old home was now a national historical monument and could be toured
for $2.50. Impulsively I bought a ticket and went outside where a bus was just about to de-
part to take half a dozen of us to the farm four or five miles away down a country lane.
Well, it was great. I can't remember the last time I had such a good time in a Republican
household. You are greeted at the door by a fragrant woman with a chrysanthemum on her
bosom, who tells you a little about the house, about how much Ike and Mamie loved to
sit around and watch TV and play canasta, and then gives you a leaflet describing each
room and lets you wander off on your own so that you can linger or stride on as it pleases
you.Eachdoorwaywasblockedoffwithasheetofclearplastic,butyoucouldleanagainst
it and gaze into the interior. The house has been preserved precisely as it was when the
Eisenhowers lived there. It was as if they had simply wandered off and never come back
(something that either of them was quite capable of doing towards the end). The decor was
quintessentially early ig60s Republican. When I was growing up we had some neighbors,
the McGibbonses, who were rich Republicans and this was practically a duplicate of their
house. There was a big TV console in a mahogany cabinet, table lamps made out of pieces
of driftwood, a padded leather cocktail bar, French-style telephones in every room, book-
shelves containing about twelve topics (usually in matching sets of three) and otherwise
filled with large pieces of flowery gilt-edged porcelain of the sort favored by homosexual
French aristocrats.
When the Eisenhowers bought the place in I950, a 200year-old farmhouse stood on the
site, but it was drafty and creaked on stormy nights, so they had it torn down and replaced
withthepresentbuilding,whichlookslikeaZoo-year-oldfarmhouse.Isn'tthatgreat?Isn't
that just so Republican? I was enchanted. Every room contained things I hadn't seen for
years1960s kitchen appliances, old copies of Life magazine, boxy black-and-white port-
