University of Virginia Library

Fred Heblich

Richard Nixon Slept Here

Every week the management of
our local Holiday Inn
communicates a new message to the
passersby on route 29 north. The
sign which stands for comfort has
done everything from welcome
visitors for garden week to support
the endeavors of the Wahoo athletic
teams.

Not long ago, things in town
must have seemed pretty dull, and
the management was hard pressed
to think up a lively new message to
put on their sign. So they reverted
to hard-sell advertising. Certainly
Holiday Inn has a right to
advertise, but in many cases a
business shows its true colors in its
advertising, and in no case were
truer colors ever shown.

The message which Holiday Inn
finally displayed read: "Our
President Sleeps Here/Why Not
You?"

Now, very few people would
doubt that Richard Nixon actually
does sleep in Holiday Inns, which is
the beauty of the advertisement,
because it says quite a bit about
Richard Nixon.

Mediocrity in the White House is
nothing new in American history,
but never has mediocrity been
flaunted before the American
public so openly, and never has
mediocrity been so respectable as it
has become in the person of
Richard Nixon. The fact that he
sleeps in Holiday Inns is supposed
to attract other people to sleep
there. Which says something about
the American people.

Truck Followers

People who decide to stay in
Holiday Inns because Richard Nixon
likes them are the same ones who
follow tractor-trailers because truck
drivers always know the best places
to eat.

A point not easily seen is that
this discussion invites a comparison
between George Washington and
Richard Nixon. How many
thousands of tourists have stood
gaping in front of a restored cabin
at Valley Forge and listened
reverently to the words, "And
folks, George Washington really did
sleep here." George was famous for
his sleeping habits and quarters.
Now, so is Richard Nixon.. And
maybe in a hundred and fifty years,
pasty-faced school children will
tour a restored Holiday Inn and
hear the same words about Richard
Nixon.

But aside from the fact that
Richard Nixon likes them, what is
the attraction of Holiday Inns? It is
best summed up by Spiro Agnew,
who once said. "If you've seen one
slum, you've seen them all." In the
true spirit of democracy, all
Holiday Inns were created equal,
not to mention exactly the same.
They are built in the spirit of a
child who mixes twenty-five
different flavors of Kool-Aid
together and discovers that the
finished product doesn't taste like
anything except sugar and water.

Lemon-Lime Lover

Ah, but where would Richard
Nixon be if he ever mentioned the
fact that he preferred lemon-lime to
red raspberry? The man who keeps
to the middle of the open road is
the cautious man, the man whom
no one can single out, the man lost
in the mass of the rest of the middle
of the road traffic.

But only the most skillful of
men can stay in the middle of the
road when pressed for a truthful
statement. Just watch Richard
Nixon in action at a press
conference. There is a space
between Richard Nixon's nose and
Richard Nixon's upper lip. When
Richard Nixon gets nervous or is
under strain, a small amount of
perspiration builds up in that space
between the nose and upper lip.
After all, it's not easy to lie or
evade an answer in front of 200
million people.

But once the question is
successfully evaded, with a graceful
well executed move, the first finger
of the right hand quickly sweeps
away the perspiration, making it
possible to flash a wide smile
without dripping sweat down his
chin. This is Richard Nixon's
credibility gap.

Why? Because only people
sweat, and sweating is not clean,
and Holiday Inns are clean.

Lenny Bruce said that he liked
John Kennedy because Kennedy
was the only president he could
imagine walking around the White
House in his underwear drinking
beer.

Now, imagine it happening
today. "Hello all you out there in
television land. I'm Tricia Nixon
and tonight I'm taking you on a
four of the White House. As we go
through this door....oh,
daddy...what are...," and there,
standing in the doorway in his
BVD's sweat dripping off his upper
lip, a beer in his hand, picking his
nose: Richard Nixon.

Drinking Fizzies

But we know it isn't like that,
unfortunately. Because we know
that he will be somewhere else in
the White House, probably playing
hearts with Henry Kissinger,
ordering a new wardrobe from
Robert Hall's drinking Fizzies, and
soaking his dentures.

Richard Nixon moves
cautiously, close to the middle
down the open road. Referring to,
Walt Whitman, poet Louis Simpson
wrote that today the open road
leads to a used car lot. And when
we get there, guess who will be
waiting.