Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas

Chapter 9: Lyndon, We Hardly Remember Ye: LBJ in the Memory of Modern Texas

Chapter 9 Lyndon, We Hardly Remember Ye: LBJ in the Memory of Modern Texas Ricky Floyd Dobbs My only memory of Lyndon Johnson just happens to be his last public event. I remember his funeral. The whole first grade sat (so-called “Indian-style”) on the floor of our open classroom. We watched the televised goings-on in Washington; I watched the Hill Country burial at home with my mother. There wasn’t much else on television back in those days. All three networks were all Lyndon, all day. In retrospect, Johnson’s obsequies seem muted, especially in comparison to the Reagan funeral extravaganza that consumed a whole week in June 2004. The most Texan of “Texan” presidents died on January 22, 1973. By afternoon on the twenty-fourth, the former president’s body lay in state at the LBJ Library in Austin. An estimated thirty-two thousand persons paid their respects before its departure for Washington and the Capitol rotunda. Forty thousand more viewed the casket there, and a “Service of Tribute” celebrated LBJ’s life of public service at National City Christian Church. The next afternoon, Johnson’s body returned to Texas for interment on the former president’s Gillespie County ranch. Johnson died only four years after leaving the White House. He had deceived the nation repeatedly about a far-off war. He had escalated American involvement in Southeast Asia, ignored advice to alter course, and saw the whole gamble come crashing down around him as America’s cities burned and its youth rebelled. In 1973, not many were in the mood to forgive and re- lyndon, we hardly remember ye 221 member. Johnson had died before his friends could properly build a memory of his accomplishments. Even before his death, some suggested his legacy would be bigger than Vietnam. His personality alone, some claimed, would secure him a prominent place in American history and Texas memory. In 1969, journalist Marshall Frady described him as “an awesome phenomenon simply as a human being, with an epic ego, exuberances, glooms, ambitions, paranoias, generosities , will: a kind of ill-starred, left-handed Prometheus.” Three years after his death, Texas Monthly remembered him as “a great original, a man whose energy and personality knew few bounds, the polar opposite both of Richard Nixon’s rootless ambition and Gerald Ford’s midwestern blandness.” Eventually , time and his acolytes’ advocacy restored Johnson’s historical reputation. Paul Burka described 2000 as “a very good year” for Lyndon Johnson, “his best one since 1964.” Historians reexamined Johnson’s accomplishments, and the ongoing release of taped White House phone conversations strengthened his image. Johnson remains a hot property for students of the past. Unfortunately, the general public’s memory of Lyndon Johnson has begun to fade. The scholarly attention LBJ has received over a twenty-year period cannot fully correct collective memory. Though historical sites and museums do a fine job of presenting the real Johnson, their ability to mold public perceptions is limited by the public’s willingness to come through the door. Public school social studies curricula and textbooks might transmit scholarly understanding of the past, including insight into LBJ. But that is hardly their sole purpose, let alone their chief goal. The current generation’s level of awareness of Johnson confirms this view. Lyndon Johnson no longer seems relevant to modern Texas, and he is best remembered for irrelevancies and failings rather than his contributions to the life of the state and nation. A pleasure trip to the Hill Country in late July might be thought mad. During spring and fall, the Hill Country charms, but it is still Texas in the summer. Summer 2004 defied usual weather patterns, however. When I arrived for a tour and visit with National Park Service staff at the LBJ Ranch, it was overcast, mild, drizzling, and green. Even today, Johnson still looms over his particular patch of earth. It is the best place in Texas to get to know him and one of the few where his memory has yet to fade. The LBJ ranch is a hybrid site. The National Park Service (NPS) administers the ranch complex and lands; the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department runs a state park across the Pedernales River from the Johnson place. Together, they share a visitor center on state land. NPS staffers describe the 222 ricky floyd dobbs ranch as a “natural park...