Tale from visiting a National Monument (Sagamore Hill)

[kwolf68]

Teddy Roosevelt's home. So anyway, just got back from a 2-week vacation where part of it took us to Long Island.

The only way you get into the house is to take a guided tour. However, getting admission we found to be impossible. For 7 consecutive days we logged into the website to pick a tour immediately at 9AM we found admission had already been taken. By the end of the 7 day my wife and I were using multiple computers to get entry. We never did.

SO, we just showed up and we told the tour guide our story and he said just to stand bye (inference was he'd let us go). While waiting for the entire group to show other people from other areas with similar stories to us showed up. In the course of 5 minutes maybe 5 or 6 others. THEY were all turned away. I was lucky to get through as I took the tour. So I got in for free and felt guilty but went anyway. The tour guide was awesome, excited about the material, funny and knowledgeable.

Knowing I got in for free when others paid $15 a person I decided just donate at least $30 to the House. There I was told they no longer take donations due to staffing reductions. Staffing reductions was also what has lead to the number of people who can even get a tour. The parks workers there were wonderful, but you could tell their morale is shit. To support the house I bought a couple books, it was the least I could do.

SO, this moronic bunch of freaks are cutting back our national parks and then when someone WANTS to give money to it we can't. Meanwhile, countless people are rejected or just don't go due to the horrific ability to cater to the demand from the American people who wish to goto this place. This is some of the dumbest management as well as just basic economics that I can fathom. I am sure it's like this everywhere else.

Donald Trump and his minions at the Interior department don't own that place, the American people do and now the American people can barely get access, if at all. Not only are we restricted from seeing a national landmark, but also what these people THOUGHT. And I promise you, while not perfect, A LOT of what Teddy Roosevelt thought flies in the direct face of the modern Conservative movement.

[bronxiteforever]

1. Teddy would literally kick the behind of the Fanta menace.

He is everything Teddy hated. From TSF’s gold painted Oval Office to his moral cowardice to his running a rigged economy (not a square deal) to his hated of the natural world, animals and national parks. Also from the POTUS who was a biology student at Harvard and who started the FDA, RFKjr would also get a swift kick to his ass.

[harumph]

2. Some billionaire probably wants to buy it.

Run it all down and then buy it for pennies on the dollar. Republicans don't believe in the concept of the "commons."

[TommyT139]

3. That is certainly the plan

...for a lot of the parks.

And I bet the Stonewall Inn would fetch a chunk of gold, too.

[BoRaGard]

4. G.O.P probably arranges "special tours" for billionaires

that's how they roll

[BaronChocula]

5. Oh, the irony

And who signed into law the Antiquities Act which empowered the president to create national monuments and so on? Bueller? Bueller?

[mgardener]

6. I grew up not far from there

When my kids were younger, we took them there often while visiting my mom.
My daughter shares a b day with TR.
She named my grandson Theodore.
One Dec 26, while visiting my mother, we took them to Sagamore Hill. It was 55 and sunny. We had left - temps at home.
We were the only ones there. They gave us a guided tour, took us all over the house even the restricted places and let my kids sit in TR's chair in the library. And very carefully touch things.
They told stories about the Roosevelt kids and what they did
I don't think they realized what a gift they gave my kids that day. They let them really experienced history in a way that was very relatable to them.
It was such a wonderful experience.
I am so sorry it has come to this.

[NNadir]

7. Wow. My parents took me there several times when I was a kid.

It was my first tour of a Presidential home. They also took me to Roosevelt's grave. I grew up on Long Island, in Suffolk County, and I was probably pretty young because Oyster Bay seemed exotic.

I have been to Springwood, FDR'S home twice, never a line or restriction. Once was part of a seminar put on by Cornell on the Four Freedoms speech. Several ex-Congressmen spoke, including a pre-orange pedophile worshipping example of what that party once was.

I also took a detour on a business trip to tour Lincoln's home. I was very moved by Lincoln's house. I actually think I wept during the tour.

I recommend FDR's house and museum tour highly. I first went for a museum display on his decision to rin for a fourth term when he, and everyone close to him knew he was dying. (Some of his medical records were on display.) I commented on Nigel Hamilton's account of why he ran, giving his last to assure peace that would last, over in the history forum.

Last week there was an estate sale in Princeton in Grover Cleveland's home which had just been sold to private owners. My wife and I poked our heads in, not much to see, just a few of Cleveland's (or the last owner's) books marked not for sale. Woodrow Wilson's house is also for sale a few blocks away. One can tour it on line at the real estate company's website, although there's not much left of his times in that house. It's now a highly modernized McMansion for the one or two percent types.

I'm not a fan of either Cleveland nor of Wilson. I regard the latter as the worst Democratic President of the 20th century.

A bucket list desire, not likely to be fulfilled, is to tour Harry Truman's home. I just named my new kitten Harry. (My wife vetoed naming the cat Franklin.) I have always wanted to understand how Roosevelt came to choose Truman as VP. I dream of going to their Presidential libraries to research the topic, which won't happen. I regard it as an inspired choice although almost no one knew at the time. It strikes me as mysterious. Truman was a great man I think. Choosing him was Roosevelt's last great act in a lifetime of great acts.

I'm not sure that Harry the cat will be a great cat though. Harry the cat is kind of wild.