An educational and inspirational stop along I-70

We drove to Iowa City last week to help granddaughter Anna celebrate a big scholarship based on her freshman year work on the Daily Iowan, to to mention catching up with family and friends. It's a bit over 800 miles and not what anyone can call "scenic." 

Plus, it's just a long slog of about 12 hours with hundreds of semi's competing for the space on the interstates. But one reason for driving was my quirky desire to stop in the very center of Kansas on I-70 and visit the Eisenhower Presidential museum in Abilene. That is the town Dwight David Eisenhower, hero of WWII and inaugurated as President in 1952, grew up in. 

His term as president began when I was one and one-half years old, so the timeline of much of the museum was a snapshot, of sorts, of America in my lifetime.

He was a Republican when political parties did not remotely resemble what we have now. In fact, both parties recruited him to run for president and why he chose to run as a Republican is not clear. 

What was clear is that he was a modest, smart, and dedicated leader who was an internationalist and who somehow managed to appeal to most people around him. Here is one quote that sticks with me that I found while we enjoyed the well-organized museum: “Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.”

I didn't cry but I wasn't far from it. 

Imagine government officials who embraced that sort of humility and honor and respect for others. 

I know the 1950s are often ridiculed by a world that overly values sophistication and cynicism and revising all past truths, and I know prosperity was hardly equal in that decade after the war ended. In fact, the 1950s may be what the MAGA cult may be imagining when they seek to make American great again. 

Leaders won't ever be perfect. Government will never be perfect. The world will fall short, over and over. But there was a time when there were people in government who were looked to the future, who tried to, even in small doses, make the country and the world a little better each day.

President Eisenhower was one of those leaders. He represented a "middle way," and that was both his style and his politics. 

Our passions push us away from the middle way, but I see the value in steady progress toward a better country. 

If you are ever driving through the middle of the middle of America, stopping for few hours in Abilene would be well worth your time.