A Place Called Hope

Say what you will about President William Jefferson Clinton. Orator. Playboy. Presider over the greatest economic expansion in American history. Disgraceful symbol of presidential excess. You cannot deny, though, that he personifies the American dream. His story is what Americans want our story to be. And he captured that aspiration in his 1992 nomination acceptance speech:

Somewhere at this very moment, another child is born in America. Let it be our cause to give that child a happy home, a healthy family, a hopeful future. Let it be our cause to see that child reach the fullest of her God-given abilities. Let it be our cause that she grow up strong and secure, braced by her challenges, but never, never struggling alone; with family and friends and a faith that in America, no one is left out; no one is left behind.

Let it be our cause that when she is able, she gives something back to her children, her community, and her country. And let it be our cause to give her a country that's coming together, and moving ahead -- a country of boundless hopes and endless dreams; a country that once again lifts up its people, and inspires the world.

Let that be our cause and our commitment and our New Covenant.

I end tonight where it all began for me: I still believe in a place called Hope.

“Hope,” in that instance, was a double entendre. It referred to our collective hope that Americans’ best days are still ahead of them, but it also referred to Bill Clinton’s humble boyhood home of Hope, a modest railroad junction town in southwest Arkansas.

The Random Roadtrippers pulled into Hope, Arkansas around 8:30 Monday night. We found a Best Western and unpacked. Then we took turns making up excuses – an evening constitutional, a phone call – to spend a half hour or so walking in the 55-degree pleasant evening air. We’d had dinner at Burge’s Smoked Hams and Turkeys in Lewisville, and we all looked a good 5 months pregnant with barbecue bloat. Burge’s has locations in Lewisville and Little Rock, and if you ever have the opportunity you should go. They cook up a mean Smoked Anything, and the ribs will have you sucking every last morsel of meat off the bones. Plus they’ll ship anywhere in the country.

Hope in the 1950s was a place of working class families making modest postwar livings. Other men of humble origins have occupied the oval office – Barack Obama comes to mine – but none have origins quite so humble as Bill’s. Tragedy struck early in the future president’s life when his alcoholic father widowed his mother Virginia in a car accident. Soon after Virginia decided to attend nursing school in New Orleans, leaving Bill in the care of his loving but stern grandparents.

That first home, Bill Clinton’s boyhood home and grandparents’ house, was our first stop Tuesday morning. A modest 1917 two-story country home next to the railroad tracks and in a now ramshackle neighborhood, the brand new National Park property (dedicated in 2011) is an easy place to miss. The visitors’ center has an unassuming gate off of a broken sidewalk, and two lonely park rangers occupy the sparsely furnished space. The upside, though, is that you get a very nice, very personal tour.

Our tour guide, a young African-American park ranger named Charles with a laugh just like Jay-Z’s seemed to have a genuine affection for the 42^nd president. And that’s a good thing. Ben and Jason have been on a sort of Bill Clinton kick lately, following PBS’s recent American Experience documentary. The man may not have been very good at keeping it in his pants, but he was one heck of a politician. And after 12 years of ho hum or negative economic growth it’s kind of hard for anyone who came of age during the 90s not to feel a little nostalgic for him.

Plus there’s the unmistakable fact that Bill Clinton’s grandparents’ home looks and smells an awful lot like our grandparents’ homes: the same outdated furniture and wall paper, the 1950s layout, the creaky wooden stairs. I defy you to walk directly from a tricked out urban loft condo with a big granite kitchen island and massive entertainment center into a home like that. Then tell me where you feel more relaxed. Me, I’ll take the yellowed pages of a few youth novels and a few old tin toy trucks on Grandma’s carpet.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the Bill Clinton Boyhood Home in the next few years. Will the visitor’s center get better displays than the cheesy vinyl popup tradeshow graphics that presently reside there? Will the grounds get better landscaping than the house’s weed-overrun law? Will the Park Service buy Vince Foster’s boyhood home, now sitting dilapidated, an eyesore, next door? Will it get better neighbors than the used car lot across the street and the farm supply store around the way? Time will tell. Us, we tend to believe that, like so many low points in Bill Clinton’s career, 2012 is the beginning of a renaissance for this weathered corner of Hope, Arkansas. If the Comeback Kid has anything to say about it, we believe in a place called Hope.