My 21 Years in the White House

Here is another fun book. It's short. It's old. I don't know if it is even available as a book. I downloaded it. Alonzo Field was the main usher at the White House for a long time.= - 21 years in fact.

He started with Herbert Hoover and ended with Harry Truman. (Chicago did a song called "Harry Truman" - download it sometime. It's not your typical Chicago song, but it's cool. Unless you don't like Harry Truman.) He only lasted three presidents because FDR was there so long. Let's take a tour.

Herbert Hoover - I don't think Field used the word "stodgy" in the book, but that's the best way to describe him. For that matter, I'm not sure I've ever used the word stodgy before now. Here are some factoids. There - another work I've never used before.

• Apparently Hoover played with a medicine ball outside each morning at 6:30. A little weird.
• Mr. and Mrs. H called each other "Mother" and "Father". Weird again.
• All meals were to be served exactly the same time each day. Not as weird, but still...
• On the other hand, in 12+ years the Roosevelts were pretty much never on time.
• Everything was really tense with the Hoovers. The WH staff knew they were in big trouble if the made mistakes or made any unnecessary noise. The opposite with the Roosevelts.
• The Roosevelts were pretty much the opposite of stodgy and he says they were laughing it up all the time.
• FDR's buddy Churchill stayed at the WH quite a bit. He liked to drink. Field came in and saw all the bottles and Churchill said "I hope you will come to my defense if someday someone should claim that I am a teetotaler." Say, I like that Winston.
• Fields said that months before they all knew FDR was dying.
• Harry seemed to be between the extremes of the two previous presidents in terms of temperament. He was also a really nice guy. He and Bess knew all the WH staff by name.
• He describe a visit by Princess Elizabeth, who of course, is the current Queen Elizabeth. He liked her a lot
  

So, a fun book. It's nice to have a former WH person write a book that doesn't trash the people he worked with.