Your Presidential Center is both amazing and inspiring, just like you. I didn't previously have any plans to visit Chicago, but I think this is a trip I need to make someday. The five-foot high letters, from your 2015 Selma Anniversary speech, wrapping around the outside of the building, provided the first opportunity for me to shed a few tears.
“You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We The People.’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ‘Yes We Can.’ That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.”
Thank you for these words of hope,
Bonny, who is cautiously hopeful
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It's just me again. I want to applaud you for the diversity and variety of everything you've included on the 19 acre campus of your Presidential Center. The Museum, Forum, Home Court, branch of the Chicago Public Library, John Lewis Plaza, Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable Garden, a playground, the Great Lawn which includes a sledding hill, and so much more makes this a place that I could easily envision spending a week or more. There is truly something for everyone.
I think you may be right in predicting that Michelle's dresses will be very popular, but Bo and Sunny are pretty appealing, too. I wonder if yours is the only Presidential Library to include dogs' water bowls and chew toys?
I would love to see your Nobel prize as well,
Bonny, an admirer of you and much of your stuff
I want to thank you for your recent show, tour of the Obama Presidential Center, and being yourselves. The questions, answers, humor, discussion about aliens, and wastepaper basketball were just what I needed. I have a feeling that shiny gold trophy you presented to Obama might become highly coveted, so I hope it’s being kept under close watch.
Thank you for everything you've both given us,
Bonny, an ardent admirer
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Wishing you all a wonderful and hopeful weekend.
These letters are even more poignant with this week's destruction of voting rights. How I long for the day when the goal of the US is not to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps but rather lift our neighbor and steady them on their way... cheering as they go. (I did not watch the interview, but I am heading to the YouTube to watch it now!)
ReplyDeleteYour letters always touch my heart - or make me laugh (sometimes both). But this particular batch is just over the top in heart-touching department. Please visit Chicago. I'll meet you there (and maybe we can talk Vicki into joining us) and we'll have a grand time visiting Obama's Presidential Center together. I get teary pretty much every time I hear Obama say anything. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteWell, Bonny, you have brought me to tears, but in a somewhat good way. Remember, I am speaking from the previously blue voting district, one of only two in the state of TN. Yep, I live in that district. I am actually sick to my stomach today since that vote I was so religious about casting means literally less than nothing going forward. It didn't mean much in the past, but now it will only be cast as obligation without hope. Of course, the Republicans are not just happy around here, they are crowing, making snide remarks about doing what is best for TN, and asking how I can be consoled. So, highhanded, paternalistic, arrogant, and haughty disregard is the order of the day. Nobody, I mean nobody, misses Obama more than I do today. I loved your Friday letters.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should organize a RWU trip to Chicago? I don't know what we did to deserve eight years of President Obama, and I certainly appreciate them a lot more now, but I am so thankful we had such an intelligent, caring, and genuinely good person in the White House and would be happy to visit the library to relive them.
ReplyDeleteI loved the "May the 4th be with you" video he put out with Mark Hamill at the library. I really miss a president that has a sense of humor.
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