March / April 2010
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Cover Little White House 2 Message from the Chief Conductor HOOVER AND TRUMAN 3 Welcome Aboard TOGETHER AGAIN 4 St. Augustine 5 Vendor Spotlight 6 Someone’s in the Kitchen With... 6 Safety First 7 Puzzles, Games, and Trivia 8 Washington, D.C. 9 CAST Anniversaries 10 Boston 12 Conch Tour Train 13, 18, 21 If You Only Knew... 14 Key West 15 CASTmembers of the Month 15 Pet of the Month John Avlon, Margaret Hoover and Clifton Truman Daniel. 16 San Diego 19 Famous Faces The Harry S Truman Little efforts to save the starving of Europe, espe - 20 Savannah White House was honored to cially the cildren of Belgium. Truman was have Margaret Hoover, FOX wise enough to know 70-year old Herbert 22 Tropical Shell and Gift News commentator and Hoover could do it again and he sent D great-granddaughter of Hoover to Europe in June 1945. Most of President Herbert Hoover, her husband Hoover's reccommendations were adopted John Avlon, CNN News commentator and and reflected our finest moment as we author of Wingnuts: saved millions from certain death. How the Lunatic Fringe Hoover was again tapped in 1949 to reor - Is Hijacking America , ganize the Executive Branch of the federal and Clifton Truman government streamlining the various agen - Daniel, eldest grandson cies with the cabinet and the cabinet with of President Harry the president. Truman. While both men could be partisan politi - One month after cians, both understood that politics was a Truman assumed the give-and-take process necessary to make office of president he the system work. It was a stark contrast to asked Herbert oover for politics of the far left or far right we have help. seen for the past 20 years. John Avlon was During World War I, the perfect choice to summarize the discus - billionaire Herbert sion, as recent polls have shown most Ian J. Turpin (Luci’s husband), Paul Hilson, Hoover had led Americans would prefer a centrist govern - Luci Baines Johnson, Bob Wolz and Jane Vetter. America's humanitarian Cover Story continued on page 3... FROM THE CHIEF CONDUCTOR My Story of a Twenty Dollar Toll on the Road to Hell BY: CHRISTOPHER C. BELLAND Chief Executive Officer, Historic Tours of America, Inc. omebody once said, “The road to pocket and peeled off a twenty dollar bill hell is paved with good inten - feeling very happy with the incredible bar - tions”. As I grow older, I realize gain I had made. more and more how true it is. To be perfectly honest, I have felt crappy S A couple of months ago I went about it ever since. Here is this lovely to a yard sale being held by Karley young lady of no small talent embarking on Klopfenstein. Those of you in Key West a grand adventure and I had taken advan - might remember her as the Exhibit Director tage perhaps of our friendship, but certainly for Sculpture Key West. We knew each the fact that this was a one-time “must-sell- other, so we engaged in some casual banter everything” day for her. The table was about the fact that she was selling everything clearly worth substantially more than I paid, she had and moving to New York to try to yet still I fell in the trap of self interest and make it as an artist. A part of me was jeal - played the yard sale game. In all candor, if I ous of her ability to literally sell everything had it to do over, I would have given her and make a commitment to an entirely new twice her asking price, for the piece was place and career. That is a feeling of worth it. absolute freedom I have not felt for many In any event, the table now sits in my liv - decades. For, once one establishes oneself ing room with a vase of water plants on it. in a community, whether you like it or Its graceful elegance and obvious quality believe it, friends, family, business and even enhance my life every day. Every time I see a dog all conspire as things that tie you it, though, I shamefully remind myself I down. While it is not necessarily bad, it is should send Karley the twenty dollars addi - far from complete freedom. tional she asked for it and, to a small degree, weight, be a better father or partner, to get While we were talking, someone came up it makes me feel miserable. It’s a good organized, to go to church, read two books and asked her a price for something and I intention and I have made myself swear that each week and so forth and so on. turned away and had my gaze fall upon a I will take the twenty dollar bill, wrap it in Unfortunately, we usually find ourselves not small, black, metal table. It was elegantly this column after publication and send it to very far into a New Year with many of these designed with two sweeping reversed “C” her with an apology and my best wishes for good intentions gone awry. legs at the foot of which were hand- her success in New York. To me, at least, the most important inten - wrought knuckled feet. It had a There is a mysterious element tions have to do with human relationships. piece of glass embedded in the of self inflicted misery in a Is there someone who helped you that you “L” channeled top that was good intention that is need to say a heartfelt thank you to? Is there not a cheap one eighth inch never manifested. It is someone you need to reach out to and apol - piece but, rather, a full quar - almost like procrastina - ogize? Did you make a mistake, faux pas or ter inch of solid glass that tion. We know it’s gaff that hurt somebody? Do you have a son had been milled on the wrong. We know we or a father to whom, for one reason or edges and was quite heavy. should do something another, you haven’t spoken? Whether I The piece would easily sell in a about it, but we don’t. lose weight or not, as I promised myself I gallery or fine furniture store for Maybe it’s one of those would, will matter pretty much only to me, north of $200, at least that was my Freudian conditions of human but the human relations that need mending estimation, for it was a one off, well execut - nature like a gambler who plays until he and are left unattended, are the bricks that ed piece of sculpture furniture. It had a loses everything. He knows he’s going to do, indeed, pave the road to hell or at least a small yellow sticker with the price of forty lose but he does it anyway. Personally, I degree of unhappiness. dollars on it. When Karley came back over think we should change New Year’s Eve to As you are reading this, you can be sure to me, I automatically, without thinking, Good Intention Day, for that is the day we that I am tearing it out of the paper and said, “Would you take twenty for this?” To summarize and prioritize the intentions we wrapping it around a twenty dollar bill to which she immediately responded, “Of have to do better with our lives. We send to New York in order to remove at least course.” I pulled my money clip out of my promise ourselves to quit smoking, lose one brick in my road. 2 the nation’s storyteller ® March/April 2010 3 TROPICAL SHELL AND GIFT DC DUCKS Joel Semerzier Dale Seastrom Gayla Gerz Robert Gabler Travis Jones Kent Thomas Cindy Acevedo Michael Courtney Laura Corbett Frank Santacroce Curtis Craig Allen Delaney Roberta Catalano Stephen Heare Paige Spencer Patricia Rowles ST. AUGUSTINE Burnadette Blake Joyce Marks Jaquon Williams William Norris II Jesse Lemoon WASHINGTON, DC Joanna Jones Camolli Watkins BOSTON Scott Avery CONCH TOUR TRAIN Ralph Beard James Mehigan William Kelly David Bowers Neil Boyle II John Yarborough Darin Delrosario Richard O’Brien Brenda Schmidt Andres Trujillo Steven Johnson Ronald Moore David Parker Stephen Larson Khilola Djabarova Teresa Butts Richard Leahy Julio Martinez-Roche Charlotte Dore SAVANNAH Xzennia Robertson William St. George Jr. Beverly Calhoun Eric Blake Paul Mahoney April Jarrell Latisha Burrows Paul Peirolo Tuvia Mittman Linda Hazelton Kelly Horan Sarah Haig Anthony Coney John King Susan Olson Ashia Gaines Lianne O’Shea Juan Sepulveda Jr. Anthony Reid Raymond O’Hare Erica Felton Charles Person Francis Gleason Brian Roylance HISTORIC TOURS OF AMERICA Tiffany Blake Sharron Grzybowski Nicholas Rymer James Gainer III Michael Shine Marquese Ruth Katherine Stanton SAN DIEGO SEALS Nathan Hurley Robin Kedward Jennifer Finkle Johnny Beasley James Farrell Christopher Corrado Robert Carpenter Michael Finney Nadia Wolff Lisa Mosley George Elmies Jr. Neal Anderson Allison Tuten John Smart Natalie D’Agostino James Auld Scott Schwarz Drake Calhoun KW WELCOME CENTER Eric Coney Maria Guzman SAN DIEGO Kortnie Favors Kevin Brent Brigitte Lisk Cover Story Hoover and Truman Together Again Continued... the men were close personal friends. at the Little White House in mid May when ment. Truman had first proposed national health - a world class panel will meet to discuss A week later we were surprised to find care in 1946. In 1965, when President President Harry Truman's Far East Legacy Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of President Johnson enacted the Medicare law, it was on Japan, Korea and the two Chinas. 2010 Lyndon Johnson touring the Little White signed at the Truman Presidential Library marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning House with her husband and friends.