Ike

 

            I had an interesting conversation with Dwight Eisenhower the other day. Yeah, that Dwight Eisenhower. Ike. Thirty-fourth president of the U.S. of A. Retired.

            He was sitting by himself at one of the cafeteria tables in a forest campground friends and I had rented for a get-together. It was a large room, and he sat ramrod straight, down the way past large windows, some distance from the rest of our group. His back to the table, he sat on its bench with his arms crossed, staring into the woods.

            I went down and, brazenly perhaps, sat on a bench facing him.

            “Mr. President, what an honor! I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

            “Not at all, not at all.”

            The familiar Kansas twang, the sort of googly eyes, the famous grin, and the effortless, living-room charm of the man. The man who sixty years before had routed Rommel in North Africa and landed thousands on the beaches of Normandy couldn’t have been more at ease sitting there with me.

            What the hell was this about? Back up the room by the kitchen, Sandy and Bill and Johnny and Cherie and a dozen or so others, dim figures from an ever-lengthening past, were laughing and clinking glasses and flirting in borderline embarrassing ways. After all, each of us was good and married with grandkids who, let’s face it, couldn’t identify Ike Eisenhower if you showed them a picture. Or anyone else from the vanished `50s (except maybe Elvis), a generation further away from them than World War I was from us when we were their age.

            Eisenhower (what to call him?) and I began to talk, and we kept it up for a good while. General Dwight David Eisenhower, West Point Class of `15, had plenty to talk about. I had lots of questions but mostly kept them to myself, enchanted as I was by the old man’s very presence. He talked about Nixon (didn’t like him much), MacArthur (awed and repelled at the same time), integration (mixed), growing up in the Midwest (loved it), and running for president (not his idea). He talked about golf and recounted some of his shots, including hitting a tree at Augusta so regularly that they eventually named it after him.

            After a bit, I wondered if the general was hungry. I smelled food. Up the way the cafeteria’s ancient, accordion-like partition was pulled back, and the ladies of our group were moving hither and thither putting dishes on the service counter: potato salad, hors d’oeuvres, cheese plates and crackers, assorted fruit in bowls, nuts, pickles, chips and salsa. Outside, salmon and burgers sizzled on a National Park grill tended by the men.

            “How about something to eat, General?” I asked. “By the way, do you prefer `General’ or `Mr. President’ or what?”

            “Ike.”

            “Ike?”

            “Always liked that name, but it never got much use, to my face anyway since I pretty much outranked everything that moved.” He chuckled at his little joke, and I grinned right along with him. “Now, of course, it doesn’t matter much.”

            The “now” in that sentence stopped me. What indeed was going on here? What was the Now of my interacting with this man from down the years? Was it an echo of a handful of high school classmates, we children of Ike’s eponymous generation, chattering and giggling half a room away? Was it a hologram of a man who once was one of the most recognizable and revered people on the planet?

            Had I, perhaps, simply not gotten enough sleep last night?

            “But, young man, to answer your question, no thanks.”

            I snapped back to the fact I’d asked him about food.

            He continued, “No thanks. I don’t have much of an appetite these days. K-rations and barracks food all down my career! And Mamie was many wonderful things, but grand chef she was not.” He chuckled again and took off his glasses to wipe them.

            I didn’t touch the “Mamie” comment. Not for a second. Though I could only wonder if the gossips were right: dinner on the stove burbling away past its prime while a fourth martini was poured - no hurry, right? Burbling, indeed, in perhaps a tad too much cooking sherry. Ike’s taste buds shot off in the war; Mamie’s anesthetized by liberal applications of alcohol.

            To my credit, I hadn’t asked him if he wanted a beer!

            All this time, we sat facing each other; Ike’s eyes on mine, mine on that oh so familiar face - the one that periodically for eight years graced campaign posters and TV screens throughout the land.

            Our knees were practically touching. Outside, the late afternoon sun - the golden light - haloed trees and lit fir branches with a heavenly glow. I noticed two birds, a yellow warbler and a blue jay, perched on adjoining branches. They were unusually still; in fact, they didn't move at all. Not even their heads swiveling about as you’d expect. Maybe they were as intrigued as I. Maybe they . . . well, whatever.

            In the parking lot outside from time to time, I heard gravel crunch as latecomers arrived. Car doors slammed. The main entrance door to our knotty pine and log-raftered time capsule squeaked open, and cries ensued of recognition and re-acquaintance. Some of us had not seen others for three or four decades. Remarkably, everyone looked exactly the same. Oh, a wrinkle or two, a golfer’s tan on a slightly fuller face, comfortable shoes.

            Not a thing had changed since those screaming, floodlit football games; those darkened room petting parties, with Johnny Mathis assuring us that it was not for him to say and how wonderful wonderful we all were; the race to lockers between classes and how really, really cute the girls were. Later, those strapless prom dresses and wobbly heels; those powder blue dinner jackets and what the hell was a cummerbund?

            Finally the noisy reunion was intruding too much and I wasn’t concentrating on my remarkable visitor. I admit that, flattered as I was by the encounter, I did want to join the others, have a drink, and tell a few lies of my own. The president himself began to fidget and check his watch like he had somewhere to go.

            One last thought: “General, what if anything do you regret most about your life?”

            His eyes blinked while he thought. Weathered fingers stroked his jaw.

            “Smoking,” he said.

            “That’s all?”

            “That’s enough. It’s a killer you know. I think I was insane not to quit!”

            “General, you know what they say about insanity. It’s hereditary. You get it from your kids.”

            He put his head back and roared. A loud, whiskey smoke baritone guffaw. He’d never heard that before!

            “Gotta tell that one to the men. That’s rich.”

            “Glad I could share it. And so glad and honored to have had this conversation.”

            “I’ve enjoyed it myself.”

            I got up and turned to retrieve my jacket from behind me. I turned back to shake Ike’s hand . . . but he was gone. Just like that. Must still be quick on his feet, the old man.

            I walked back to the group, but warily, and I stood a ways off and took in the scene. Could have been a hologram itself. And yes, insanity - like smoking, and unprotected sex these days, and motorcycling without a helmet, seeing ghosts, and, well, living one’s youth over again -  insanity sometimes ain’t all bad. Like Hunter Thompson said, "It's always worked for me."