My wife and I went again to the "Temple" of Liberalism, a 2nd time.

[NNadir]

It was to the first Presidential library, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library in New Hyde Park.

It was a rainy day, a little snow, after a wonderful afternoon yesterday in Beacon, NY, coffee, candy, a cool used book store where I bought a 1937 history of chemistry, a nice dinner, with a nice local music duet playing as entertainment.

We had a nice night together, my wife and I, a chance to be alone and to be in love.

We went last year at Christmas week, and felt we missed something. We went again, and still feel like we're missing so much.

I wept several times thinking of the America that FDR left us; and of course, prominent, right up front, the Greatest Democrat of them all, Eleanor, was a big part of the museum's displays.

If you can go there, do so. For any good liberal, it will be filled with deep meaning about our roots.

[cilla4progress]

1. Lovely.

Celebrating?

[NNadir]

2. Nothing special, just one of those times my wife said, "Why don't we..."

It's one of the many reasons I've been so deeply in love with her for such a long time.

[cilla4progress]

6. Lucky

people!

[NNadir]

7. True dat.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. I visited twice in the 1980s

It was amazing. The rooms of the house untouched, his wheelchair in the bedroom, the vintage plumbing just as it was. The library as i remember was attached to the house by a long corridor the Park Service or the Foundation built later. In the basement was a gift shop and the car that FDR drove. The park service employees were extremely knowledgeable and interesting.

[yorkster]

4. Went there as a child with Mum and Dad and sisters.

It was definitely a pilgrimage. My parents loved FDR. Years later I got to see Campobello with my husband. Quite moving..

It is deeply saddening to ponder what has been lost and the even more dire plans being hatched. Cannot imagine what my parents would think of what has transpired over the last 20 years or so.

[orleans]

5. sounds like a wonderful time

[LoisB]

8. Thank you for the acknowledgement of Eleanor. Frances Perkins belongs right up there with her so far as

great Democrats. IMHO

[NNadir]

9. In my personal life, I call on things from Eleanor often.

Mostly it is "...you must do the thing you think you cannot do..." but there are many others, advice I repeat to others, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent..." and so on...

These simple yet powerful aphorisms...

To me, she made Franklin, made him rise to greatness, and thus made the modern Democratic Party and thus made America great.

There's so much to her, going all the way back to her youth, her dismissive mother, her beloved but distant father who drank himself to death leaving her in unyielding grief, but still she was a child of privilege - her uncle, the President of the United States gave her away at her wedding to Franklin - and yet she never hesitated to go beyond privilege.

So much compassion, so much depth, so much wisdom, so much strength, so much decency and above all so much courage, it's all there.

"We shall not look upon her like again," to paraphrase Willie the Shake.

[LoisB]

11. You are 100% on the money. She is one of my greatest heroes.

You are right, Shakespeare could have been speaking of her - we will certainly not look upon her like again.

[electric_blue68]

12. Truly one of America's greatest (the history I've read on her)...

There's a lovely statue of her at a west heading street turn northward in public, and private transportation ( visa versa) in a partial green treed traffic circle.

When I've traveled north or southward I always wave at it/her.

[AKwannabe]

10. Kicked

[Emile]

13. Never been there, but you spiked my interest in making

the journey.