Sometime shortly after Lyndon Johnson died, a close friend and I took our children to Johnson City.
In those days, tour buses took visitors to the cemetery, the schoolhouse, and then went on to the ranch. At the show barns and arena, we disembarked the bus, and the guide took everyone in to talk about the cattle and other operations. My friend and I lagged behind, and she struck up a conversation with an employee standing off to the side. He had started working on the ranch as a young man. My friend remarked that working for someone who became famous must have had an impact on his life. I can still hear him telling her, “He treated all of us good. He even put us on that big airplane and took us up to the White House. We ran around that place like we was somebody important.” Then, he hung his head, got tears in his eyes, and very softly said, “I sure do miss him.”
That conversation was the high point of the trip for my friend and me.
Note: I wrote this account a few days after our visit. I found it when going through old files today.