Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo

Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.0/5.0 - This was a fairly interesting book where the author attempted to recreate a road trip that the former president Harry Truman and his wife, Bess, made shortly after he left office, in 1953. They were simple people who enjoyed the simple things in life, and after years in Washington, they just wanted to get in their car and travel from Independence, MO to Washington and NYC, stopping along the way to see friends and colleagues. Where the restaurants or motels still existed, the author stopped and ate or stayed there. He talked to as many people as he could find and included photos from archives of various stops, mostly of the president greeting people (a cabbie, a small child, etc.). One thing that really stood out to me while reading this book was the tremendous difference between his post-presidential life and others who followed him. At the time he left office, there wasn't a pension system in place for presidents, and he paid staff and the expenses of his office out of his own pocket. The Trumans were never well-to-do to begin with, and Harry refused to use his status to make money (charge fees to speak or join corporate boards).
The author portrayed the president as a humble, stubborn, interesting person and shared little bits of history, both of Truman's past and what was going on in America at that time, that added to the enjoyment of the story. While it wasn't a comprehensive biography, it was an interesting snapshot of a small piece of his life.

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