So during the lazy, hazy days of summer I have some weekends that don't have commitments scheduled solid from Friday night till Monday morning. This weekend was one of them and I did something "I" wanted to do yesterday (Saturday).
Wife and children, want to go with me? "No not interested/doing my hair".
Mom and Dad, interested? "No I'm pulling weeds in the yard Saturday/that's nice dear".
Okay I'll go by myself then.
Where?
I was formerly not aware that I lived 90 minutes away from an official US Presidential Library. As something of a history nerd, that interests me. But it's not the vast Presidential library of POTUS's from the last 100 years. No this is Ulysses S. Grant who was the famous Union General in the Civil War. And his Library is in Starkville, MS on the campus of Mississippi State University.
Yes, I said Mississippi.
He was born and raised in Ohio and died after two terms as President about 10 years after he left the White House in New York. But his official Library is in Mississippi. He is famous for winning the siege of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River in Mississippi among other victories. He cut off river traffic to Vicksburg, surrounded the town, then waited over a year. In the video shown in the Library, the Governor of Mississippi answered, when asked why seek Grant's Library in his state when the US Grant Association was looking for a home, that the state of Mississippi had done more for Grant's reputation than any other state, so why not?
It is small but interesting. So Saturday I drove to Stark-Vegas (summer, not busy at all) and visited my first US Presidential Library.
I was the only person to visit during the hour I was there. Just me and the young man working the desk. No charge of course.
There is a small wing adjacent that has some Lincoln memorabilia hence the Lincoln image in the picture above.
As I said it's not big.
The display continues back and around the left corner for a ways.
Bottom Line: Grant went to West Point as a young man and made the military his career (he loved horses). As a General he was known for his position on "unconditional surrender" although he was lenient on those terms. He was elected President after Andrew Johnson finished Lincoln's second term and was respected by Civil War vets on both sides during the Reconstruction years. After two terms as President, he traveled the world for three years as a representative of the US Government promoting US policy and as a negotiator. Interesting man.
Of course, going to a new town means finding a place to eat lunch. The Starkville Cafe was FULL and I had some chicken fingers that I could tell were genuinely hand made deep fried (chunks of chicken pulled from the bone, not processed meat). And it was full. There were still serving breakfast when I left at 1pm. I would recommend it.
It's not a big deal and didn't even fill an hour but it was only 90 minutes away. I'm glad I did it.
Bama Ed
PS - I'm sure our resident Mississippi DIS'ser, tiggerdad, is a donor to the US Grant Presidential Library and has accrued all the benefits that ensures. Loyalties aside, as a Southern Mississippi grad himself and his lovely DW a grad of The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), certainly he could support the scholarly interest in the Grant Library and overlook the fact that the Library was in the town with the strongest college football team in the state. Heck for a brief time a couple years ago, MSU was ranked #1 in college football. Surely that must be a point of pride for him . . . . .