LBJ Ranch

As I was driving along Texas Route 290 west of Johnson City yesterday, I saw a sign for the LBJ Ranch. These historical sites are adding a totally unplanned bonus to this trip. I couldn't resist.

I remember the Viet Nam era Johnson who struggled under the weight of the war and the protests against it. I recall watching him announce on national television that he would not seek a second elected term as president. I also knew that he had a reputation as a tough politician and had apparently used some questionable methods to obtain his first elected office.

But I was reminded today that his social consciousness and strong-armed political tactics had resulted in the passage of more than one thousand pieces of legislation, a great many of them concerned with education, social issues, and, of course, civil rights.

Visiting Johnson's home brought all this to light and made it apparent that the place of his birth and lifelong residency, the Texas Hill Country, had had a profound effect on his thinking, attitudes, and policies.

LBJ loved the "Texas White House" so much that he spent 24 percent of his time as president there. But most of that time was "on the clock." Johnson was apparently a tireless worker and many of his achievements as president took place in the office he built on one end of the family home. It was not unusual to see the likes of Henry Kissinger or a head of state or some other notable sitting on one of the rustic rocking chairs on the porch outside the office. Press secretary Bill Moyers had a desk not far from LBJ's in the big, den-like room.

The park service ranger who guided our tour seemed to have a particular interest in the Kennedy/Johnson era. When I asked her about it, she said it stemmed from the time that she saw President Kennedy as a child. She was standing on a sidewalk in Dallas watching the presidential motorcade go by. She said President Kennedy had seemed older than she had imagined he would. Ten minutes after the motorcade passed her vantage point, the world changed.

The ranger told us that the Kennedys and the Johnsons had been headed to the LBJ Ranch for the weekend. The motorcade in Dallas was to have been a brief stopover.

The National Park Service took over the ranch after Mrs. Johnson's death nearly two years ago. They are restoring it to its 1960s look, so only the LBJ office is currently open for visitors.

Here are some photos I took at the ranch. This blogging software does not allow for picture captions, so here's some explanatory text. The first photo is of Johnson's first schoolhouse. At age four, he insisted on sitting on the teacher's lap so he could better hear her reading. The second shot is of Johnson signing a landmark education bill with that same teacher by his side. Then we see Johnson's boyhood home and a prize steer - this has always been a working ranch. Johnson's personal airstrip. The Johnson's home - the "Texas White House." The porch just outside LBJ's office. His desk in the office. A dam on the river that runs through the ranch. LBJ used to startle guests by driving his Lincoln Continental right across the dam, which has water whooshing over it. Johnson family graveyard; the large headstone is LBJ's.