|
|
 |
 Tour tips for the Presidential pit stop. By Jeff Smith RUTHERFORD B. Hayes. Hell, if you quizzed the senior classes of Tucson's high schools, I'm guessing 80 percent of the respondents could not even identify the man as a dead president of the United States of America. Some might guess he is indeed departed, because Rutherford is not a name one encounters among the living in this day and time, but Hayes' name is not one to conjur with.
My point is that Tucson has not exactly distinguished itself among the haunts of American heads of state, and, counting today's visitation, it still isn't. In two and a quarter centuries Tucson's salubrious climate, homely hospitality and reasonably priced municipal golf courses have attracted only six sitting Presidents, none of them what you'd call a real first-stringer. Rutherford dropped by in 1880, on his way from somewhere to somewhere else, but at that time if a traveler didn't stop in Tucson he would be found dead, dehydrated and scalped, either outside of Gila Bend or outside of Willcox. Our town wasn't exactly a destination resort. More of a last resort. Then in 1900 William McKinley's train stopped here for fuel and water. Trains need these things to make steam. President McKinley didn't make steam; he didn't even get off the train. He waved from the back door and headed down the line. Same with Herbert Hoover in 1932. Dwight Eisenhower actually stopped long enough to take his golf clubs out of his bag, back on January 14, 1957. It was two days before my Mom's 40th birthday, but Ike didn't even send a card. I had worn an "I like Ike" button ever since the '52 convention, and helped Peg Jones lick stamps for Eisenhower/ Howard Pyle campaign literature, but after he snubbed my mother I turned against Eisenhower and went over to the Democrats. Adlai Stevenson was my man. Gerald Ford was in Tucson on October 21, 1974, but there is some controversy over whether he actually knew his location. Security was understandably tight in that post-Watergate era, and the Secret Service only shared the Presidential itinerary on a need-to-know basis. We'd already run through a president (Nixon), a vice-president (Agnew) and come down to carting around a speaker of the House (Ford) in Air Force One. Chiefs of protocol were confused as to where next to turn for a CEO, and Betty Ford was of no use because she was on the sauce. So now we get our best shot at sitting on Santa's lap, politically speaking, and who's playing The Man in the Red Suit? America's contemporary likeness of Young W.C. Fields, William Jefferson Clinton. How come the good ones like Washington, Lincoln, even Jackson--Jesse, wasn't it?--never come around? Of course everybody wants a piece of the President. (No smart remarks.) Local pols are climbing through their own assholes, trying to figure out how to detour the presidential motorcade by their pet projects, hoping he'll take notice, stop for a photo op, utter some harmless banality, and that the whole charade will be caught on video and make the network news. It truly amazes--and appalls--me at the imperial quality of the presidency. You'd think Clinton's visit were the Second Coming of Christ instead of the sixth coming of the First Politico; that with a touch of His hand or a turn of His lip He could heal the leper, reanimate Lazarus, and cough up a big ol' hairball of cash to float the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. Well, wonders will never cease and political flunkies never will quit begging for them, so maybe Clinton's five-hour sojourn here will sow benefits we'll be reaping for generations to come. Personally, if I were setting his agenda and typing his itinerary, I'd route the presidential motorcade along Miracle Mile, where the First Willy could get an eyeful of some of Tucson's finest, in their mini-skirts and thongs. And what visit to Tucson and its scenic strip would be complete without a stop at the No-Tel Motel? I think this would be a fitting and appropriate statement on the need, even among presidents, for a return to a measure of privacy and discretion. Taxpayers, the Office of Management and Budget--even House Republicans--will appreciate that the facilities can be procured by the half-hour. After a short rest, a few quarters in the vibrating waterbed, perhaps a French film, the President could proceed to the Avra Valley to visit the trailer homes of abused and murdered children. He could use the opportunity to re-ally himself to old-fashioned family values. He could pledge to the American people that if Hillary dumps him and if he winds up with custody of Chelsea and if he loses his ass in the divorce settlement, he will not take up with a woman named Betty Jo (Miller, abuser of the John Pierre Baker grandchildren) or Betty Jeane (Armstrong, murderer of Donovan Hendricks) and he will not move into a mobile home, or if he does he absolutely will not park it anywhere in Avra Valley. Where there must be something in the water. At any rate, he will feel their pain. Then he'll go somewhere and play golf and make nice with a bunch of old geezers, probably from Green Valley where the cheap, crypto-Nazi, white-retired-industrialist sonsofbitches refuse to part with a dime for school bonds or to fly the flags for Martin Luther King Day, but whine and bitch constantly about not enough Social Security and Medicare to pay their greens fees and buy corrective golf shoes. Personally, I'd rather see the President, since he's got such a bug up his ass about gun-control, spend a little time on South 12th Avenue lecturing on target acquisition and the safe and effective use of the 9-mm semiautomatic, but one supposes that level of comprehension of the Founding Principles of the Republic is too much to hope for. If I were a betting man, I'd say the likeliest long-term benefit of today's presidential dog-and-pony show will be a warehouse full of DOD surplus green vegetable dye, to keep the fairways and putting surfaces of Randolph Park green during future winter droughts and freezes.
The State of Arizona says Hail to the Chief. And as ever, to
Hell with the Indians.
|
 |
Home | Currents | City Week | Music | Review | Books | Cinema | Back Page | Archives
|
 |
© 1995-99 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth |
|
Samuel L. Jackson: Now there was a president.
