The Assassination Vacation

My former neighbors recommended a book to me. They were sure that I would like it. I did like The Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. The audio book has other voices reading the parts including Conan O'Brian, Stephen King, and Jon Stewart. The author is a history buff and on her vacation she visits museums and plaques and locations of presidential assassinations and assassination attempts. Right away, in the first couple of pages, she starts talking about Squeaky Fromme who attempted to shoot Gerald Ford. This lady is a talented writer with a dry sense of humor. She remembers details like how Ann Landers published an article about the similarities between Lincoln's assassination and JFK's assassination. Both of their wives witnessed the event, both of their names have 7 letters, both of their assassin's names had 15 letters, Lincoln was elected in 1860 and JFK in 1960. I remember hearing about that too. One thing I didn't know was that the Lincoln Memorial was very controversial. Lincoln grew up on the prairie. At the time his memorial was being designed Frank Lloyd Wright was a prominent American architect. Why is Lincoln's memorial done in a Grecian style? Greece is not the US of A. I can see why his memorial was controversial. After his memorial was built the reflection pool was installed. The sun reflected off the pool and up into Lincoln's face and made him look absolutely terrifying. The architect was very upset. After a few years another light was added above Lincoln's head to combat the sun reflecting off the pond. Full disclosure, here is a picture of my father's second cousin's daughter visiting my Uncle's farm. Her name was Lynette and she was 4 years older than me. I don't remember ever meeting her but we are related.

Later in life Lynette changed her name to Squeaky Fromme. I am related to a failed assassin.