Side Dish: George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum 9/4/15

When you’re a history geek, you’ll step into anything. Museums, libraries, birthplaces, gravesites, obscure patches of dirt: it’s all equal in the eyes of the historian, and personal judgments should never get in the way of inquiry and investigation. As I’m the sort of person who would drive sixteen hours to see the very alley where a famous figure once took a drunken piss, it was not too outrageous to suggest that while grinding our truckster’s tires to dust in search of mammoth bones, it might not be a bad idea to spend a few hours in a Shrine of Lies. I speak, of course, of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, Texas (located within the sprawling campus of Southern Methodist University). Fine, “lies” might be exaggerating the point by half, but “shrine” is more than apt. Hell, even that might be underdone. This is a coliseum. A world unto itself. The sun, the moon, and all the stars under heaven in service of a president’s monomaniacal vision. Both state-of-the-art and senses-staggering, this is a building whored out to singlemindedness. In that sense, it’s a presidential landmark like any other – Republican and Democrat alike – but given how fresh his reign of error remains, it’s impossible not to snicker while being wholly, utterly in awe.

 

Awe? At a Museum of Dubya? Yes ’m, with no apologies. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, this might be the most impressive building in America; a bloated, unabashed Greek temple set down right in the heart of Lone Star country, all with the one and only goal of kicking your ass. And while the mission in Iraq was not even remotely accomplished, it sure as shit was on this day. I all but registered as a Republican on the way out through the gift shop. My mouth was agape. My heart full. With every turn, I knew instinctively why so many turned to National Socialism. The cult of personality has rarely been so stunningly, beautifully rendered. From the opening marble to the closing rose garden, this is how it’s done. Not truth, per se, but naked glorification. As a nation, we may want for heroes, but here’s one without all the complexity and ambiguity so common to the modern type. Bush has been prepped, powdered, and coated in love. Served hot and wide-eyed, alongside a heaping helping of potato salad and baked beans to complete the metaphor. Even Goebbels himself may have tsk-tsked the presentation as a tad much.

The question remains: should a nation erect temples to mediocrity? Does every Chief Executive, by mere virtue of having been elected to the post, deserve a rock and roll celebration poolside, with beer and titties for all? I mean, the Dubya Experience is not, in the classical sense, a historical site. Rather, it is a privately-funded, rubber-stamped, wholly-authorized version of what remains a very contentious period of time in the recent past. We come not to learn, but defer to the party line. There are papers and records and emails about, but they’re conveniently in the back. We’re here for a show, and Lord Almighty, we are not disappointed. After walking through a metal detector (I thought he supported concealed weapons?), and paying no mind to the armed guards circling about as if waiting for any excuse – snide remark, conspiracy theory, utterance about the Florida recount – to pin your ass to the wall, visitors plunk down $16 a head (plus $7 for parking) and begin the journey. Thank the stars at least some of it is about baseball.

Yes, there’s an exhibit about baseball. Not entirely unexpected in a George W. Bush museum, given that he owned 3% of the Texas Rangers and always acted as if he himself plunked down the $800 million for the franchise. And while we’re at it, stop saying “you” traded Sammy Sosa. That’s the GM’s job, and you just put up your boots while eating nachos. I’m guessing the majority owners never even let you peek at the books. Still, the display - “Baseball: America’s Presidents, America’s Pastime” – is a fun, insightful ride through the game we all used to love before concussions and pigskins took over the joint. The presidents are transformed into jumbo-sized baseball cards (for example, John Adams has a packed statistical resume, while Benjamin Harrison was simply born, then died), and we see photos and artifacts that show each man’s dedication (or indifference) to the game. For example, Taft and Harding clearly loved the game. Hell, I imagine Warren G. would have been content to waste any number of afternoons that weren’t related to Teapot Dome. LBJ, on the other hand, or Carter, just look awkward, and I still suspect Reagan wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t in some sequel to that Grover Cleveland Alexander movie.

Still, who couldn’t love all the signed balls and bats, as well as a letter from Don Larsen to Eisenhower, just after his perfect game, hoping Ike survived his massive heart attack? And who could blame me for wanting to steal that ball signed by every president since Carter? We also see Dubya’s “big pitch” during the post-9/11 World Series, a title which, one must recall, went not to New York, but Arizona, proving that God exists and he is NOT a Yankee fan. Even Dubya’s baseball card collection is included! It would be cute, except that the childish, aw-shucks appeals occurred when George was well past his 40^th birthday. This little display is about as inspirational as learning that an elderly FDR still played with tinker toys. Which he did, so back off. Nevertheless, it’s a bit of fun before the fall, almost as if Cooperstown had added a new wing for the faithful. The organization is flawless, the presentation eye-catching, and all signals the undeniable maxim that while they’re shitty at running a government, Republicans sure do have the museum thing down cold. Sure, they botch wars and disaster responses, but who else could design such gorgeous, private-sector glass cases?

So after encountering a dynamic, holy shit ceiling with faces and names and lights and graphics, we enter the main event. The big time. Somehow, against all expectation, it involves 9/11. Oh sure, we get a few displays of happier times; those few months before the worst domestic attack since Pearl Harbor, when Bush giddily sent us refund checks to help explode the deficit, and the biggest thing on his plate was whether or not to use stem cells for research (shockingly, he said no). A little No Child Left Behind here, a false claim that the economy was running on all cylinders there, with nary a word of concern on the matter. But since there was but a single spring and summer of a Bush presidency without Dick Cheney’s war-inspired erection to obliterate the sun, nothing else in this museum could ever hope to compete. So, then, a wall of noise and flame. Actual pieces of the World Trade Center. An endless sea of names. The bullhorn. Without question, it’s a masterful presentation, and it’s enough to make you forget everything from 9/12 forward. But before you click your heels in salute, you remember. Iraq. The Patriot Act. The calls for obedience. Shock and Awe. Again, the museum gets it all right – how we felt, how we cried, and how we roared for revenge – but it’s precisely how good it appears that we should always remember how it actually wasn’t.

There are interactive displays, detailed maps, and so many eye-popping, colorful blips that it’s easy to forget that there could ever hope to be another side to the story. The proud push of propaganda has its say, and it’s as straight, no chaser as we’re legally allowed to see in an afternoon. Good lord, there’s even a mammoth wall display that pretty much concludes that Bush is the Second Coming of Rachel Carson, and good luck finding a better steward of the land. On the opposite wall, a Katrina memorial of sorts, though I’m still looking for any mention of that now infamous FEMA director. If we believe the light show, Katrina was conservatism at its most compassionate, almost as if God himself sent that hurricane in order to give Dubya another chance to reinforce his inevitability as Savior. Also nearby is a reminder that for all he did or did not do, he stuck us with Justice Alito for the next 500 years. Chief Justice Roberts, while conservative, can at least be respected for his unquestionable brilliance, but Alito pretty much stopped listening years ago. His opinions are already written and stuffed in his nightstand.

Still more remains. Pics and portraits of Africa. State dinners. Official White House china. Ball gowns and tuxedos. A replica Oval Office, not quite life size, that never fails to give one goose bumps. And there, through a side window, is a replica Rose Garden, where Bush will no doubt be buried, though, given his genes, it’s altogether possible he’ll outlive the building itself. Certainly the university that chose to honor him. In all, while more Mecca for the Right, and sad, shiver-filled reminder for the Left, it’s a trip worth taking, if only to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that absent 9/11, the Bush presidency would have been a shrug-filled footnote, perhaps remembered after historians tired of debating Chet Arthur. But we do have 9/11, and Dubya’s eight years are still as miserable as any in recent memory; more so in light of the financial meltdown during the administration’s final months. But it was never dull, and for many visitors, no doubt, it will remain the focal point of emotional and historical memory. And since the paint is still a bit wet, we know that once decades have added some rust and wrinkles to the enterprise, we’ll see it all again with the proper level of scrutiny. For now, Bush: The Musical, will suffice.

An Elephantine Journey: Waco Mammoth Nat'l Monument 9/5/15

When word came down – at 2pm, July 10, 2015, to be exact – that President Obama had again used the Antiquities Act to officially welcome Waco Mammoth National Monument into the NPS family, the die was cast. Sure, it might make more sense to hit Santa Fe, New Mexico again, given its proximity, or perhaps use a single overnight stay to at last secure the “stamp-and-run” obligation that is Yucca House National Monument in Southwestern Colorado, but there never really was a choice in the matter. Waco Mammoth was declared, and with the infrastructure already in place, the welcome sign affixed, and (most importantly) the passport stamp safely tucked behind the counter, the journey became a done deal.

So what if that meant nearly 2,000 miles and four days/three nights of heavy driving in a state that all but swallows a man’s will at the border of your choosing? This was the latest, greatest star in an ever-expanding constellation that has all but defined our lives since May 2009, and dammit, it would be added to the firmament. Thankfully, these are in situ fossils we’re talking about here (unlike the lesser lights of Agate and Hagerman), as age and tire wear can no longer justify a trip across the seven seas to see another blasted fort or Indian ruin. If the NPS is to survive and thrive for generations not used to taking historical value on faith, the dust and din of the obscure must yield to a little excitement now and again. Yes, the NPS can risk being sexy. And as we’ve said before, who but the hopelessly crabby doesn’t dig a fossil? Even if it isn’t an actual dinosaur.

While not a T-Rex or some other ferocious lizard that sets adolescent hearts aflutter, the animal in question, the Columbian Mammoth, is bizarre and distinct enough to command a site of its own. Entering North America about 1.8 million years ago, the Columbian Mammoth (and their descendants) ate, shat, and delivered their young for centuries, until finally becoming extinct around 10,000 years ago. This would place the creature firmly in the Pleistocene Epoch, and as such, it was one of that era’s largest inhabitants. While not as famous as its distant relative, the Woolly Mammoth of icy legend, the Columbian “managed to grow to more than 14 feet in height at the shoulder and weighed up to 10 tons.” Not as well-loved, perhaps, but sure as shit the bigger deal (by as much as 8,000 pounds).

The origins of the site are as expected, involving the usual accidental discovery by dedicated locals and eccentrics. In this case, in 1978, two men found a femur in a ravine near the Bosque River (at the northern outskirts of Waco), which was then sent to nearby Baylor University (the Strecker Museum, to be exact) for identification. Once classified as the bone of a Columbian Mammoth, a more expanded dig began in earnest. For the next two decades, students and volunteers alike scoured the site, excavating what remains the only nursery herd of Columbian Mammoths ever found. Given the sheer number of animals involved (and their proximity to each other), scientists concluded that a catastrophic event, such as a flood or mudslide, must have swiftly buried the creatures where they fell. The event, they say, occurred approximately 65,000 to 72,000 years ago. A long time, yes, but not so distant that it takes on the qualities of the unreal. In geologic time, it’s practically yesterday.

While visitors to the National Monument do not get to see the legendary nursery herd (those fossils are safely housed at Baylor’s Mayborn Museum Complex), enough fossils remain to satisfy adult and child alike. As mentioned, the fossils have been left in their “original position within the bone bed”, all protected from the elements by a climate-controlled “dig shelter.” Visitors use a suspended walkway above the dig site to look down upon the discoveries. No further excavations are planned for the site, and given the layout, visitors can bear witness to near-mythical creatures, long passed from the earth, in their natural state. Bones in a glass case are all well and good, and often necessary, but they mean that much more when they can remain forever undisturbed as they were found. In fact, it can be reasonably argued that in situ fossils are really the only way to observe the past, even though such sites are decidedly rare (South Dakota’s privately-run Mammoth Site is another example).

While the National Monument is not exactly conveniently located (as if the mammoths had a choice about whether or not to expire next to a future interstate highway), the hidden spot makes for a more satisfactory visit, as does anything hard-earned. Open to the public only since 2009 (the site was managed by the City of Waco and Baylor University until the Park Service joined the partnership), the buildings, exhibits, and signage reek of the modern, which is so often not the case with the NPS. Unlike true dinosaurs like Scotts Bluff or Chiricahua NM, Waco Mammoth has the sort of new car smell that helps visitors focus on the meaning of the site, rather than its embarrassing trappings. The Welcome Center, though small and limited in scope, will certainly have to do, as the NPS only controls the dig site itself. Expansions and upgrades, if deemed necessary, will have to come from the will (and pockets) of Waco and Baylor.

While no NPS rangers were lurking about (it’s likely none ever will, given how the interests are divvied up), the young lady who acted as tour guide on this hot summer day was more than up to the task. She was knowledgeable, cheerful, and held the diverse crowd of wheelchair-bound and toddler together with all the confidence of an old pro. Tours occur every half-hour (adults pay $5 per person), and upon leaving the Welcome Center, visitors walk about 300 yards down a smooth, level path to the dig shelter. Before reaching the final destination, however, the guide sits everyone down in an amphitheater of sorts to explain the size and scope of the creatures we are about to see post-mortem. It’s a brief, layman’s lecture, but sufficiently informative nonetheless.

Of course, it goes without saying that any NPS aficionado worth his or her salt wants more. An expensive, state-of-the-art movie, perhaps. More displays. Lights, thunder, bravado. But given that the site, as an official park unit, is less than two months old, all complaints should bear in mind that in the years to come, things will only get better. As it stands, Waco Mammoth National Monument is an important addition, and the sort of subject matter than doesn’t seem to get enough attention from an organization so devoted to vistas and long-forgotten battlefields. Here, visitors don’t have to stretch their imaginations to wonder why the official seal has been slapped on a sign: it’s science, man, and we all just instinctively get it. As Americans, it’s important to remember that our identities are ever-tied to the past, even a long, distant past that took place without us.

 

 

FINAL RATING:

 

8.5/10