Sept 12

Stopped by Herbert Hoover’s Presidential Museum and Library in Iowa. Did you know that he was orphaned when he was 9 years old and moved to Newburg, Oregon? He lived with his uncle’s family there. All we knew about Hoover when we went in was the mess around the depression. I didn’t know that he graduated from Stanford, was a mining engineer, world traveler, and Secretary of Commerce before becoming President. It appears he began his presidency with citizens expecting the most from him and within days of taking office as president, the stock market crashed. He left office with one of the lowest approval ratings ever seen. He got a bad rap in a way though because even as Secretary of Commerce he was warning everyone that the economy was in trouble and had been trying to pass reforms for several years.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned that we have been driving for quite some time on “blue roads” and other small highways. The entire mid-west seems to be rolling green hills full of hardwood trees (no evergreens) with MILES of field corn and soy beans in between. We had to ask a farmer about the corn because it looked to me like they had forgotten to harvest and it was all drying out. The explanation was that its not sweet corn but field corn and they will let it dry out a few more weeks before they harvest. It gets used for corn oil, alcohol, and animal feed, etc….also ETHANOL—go Neil K!!!!!