On the Road with Harry

       More Letters From Paradise
         On the Road With Harry
When President Franklin Roosevelt died while in office, he left some mighty large shoes to fill. His Vice-President Harry Truman was up to the job. While he was in office he had to decide to use the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII. He saw to it that our armed forces became integrated. He fired the popular hero General MacArthur for wanting to carry the Korean War into mainland China. And he stood up to Stalin and the Russians.

All of the above is well known, but few Americans realized that when Harry left office,there was no fanfare, no Secret Service protection, office staff, and above all,no pension. (This was later changed.) He and his wife Bess simply jumped into their car and drove to their home in Independence. Missouri. He was the last president to return quietly to public life.

Today ex-presidents get retirement packages  that can be worth more than a million dollars a year. Harry was broke. He had taken out a loan from a Washington bank in order to make ends meet. When he took office his salary was seventy-five-thousand dollars a year, and he had to pay for all White House expenses. But before leaving office he had made a deal with Doubleday Publishers for an advance of six hundred thousand dollars on his memoirs, a huge sum in 1953, when the average worker barely made more than four thousand dollars a year. But there was a catch. The advance would be taxed as income at a rate of 67 per-cent. He said later that he gained just thirty-seven thousand dollars.

Still, Harry had enough money to take Bess on a vacation to Hawaii, and to buy a new car. His choice was a Chrysler New Yorker, and it was offered to him for free, but he chose to pay for it himself as a private citizen. Nobody knows what the car cost. It was a black four-door sedan with chrome wire wheels and whitewall tires.

 Harry planned to take a road trip from Independence to New York city. Harry packed eleven suitcases, and off they went.

Harry loved to drive fast, but his wife Bess forced him to drive at a top speed of 55mph. One time Harry was driving in the left lane of the Pennsylvania Turnpike with a string of car behind him. A state trooper ordered him to turn off the road and when he bent down to look inside he got a shock, it was Harry Truman and his wife. The trooper thought to himself "Shit, what was I gonna do now?"

Harry and Bess stopped at hotels and diners where he had eaten when he was a member of the U.S. Senate. Sometimes he was recognized and forced to pose for pictures.  He and Bess went unnoticed. They were simply having a great time.

The above information is taken from a great book "Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure," by Matthew Algeo, published in 2009 by Chicago Review Press. Mr. Algeo and his wife traced Harry's trip, staying where he had stayed, and eating in diners where Harry and Bess had eaten. It is a really fun ride for the reader.

I feel that I must insert here that while Harry was buying his Chrysler New Yorker in 1953, my father bought a new Chevrolet Bel-Air. As I was a teen driver, I was very careful with his new car. I also have a connection with Harry Truman.

Truman was known as a letter writer, and that he answered every letter sent to him. I was teaching a high school government class of 47 students, and I wrote a letter to him and he replied. He wished me well on my new career. I no longer have the letter, as one of my daughters has it.

     Aloha
     Grant