The Hyzy books have put me on the trail back to the White House. Another book by Margaret Truman to start with: The President's House. This is a fascinating look at what it's like to live in the White House from someone who has 'been there, done that.' The White House has been ransacked, burned, redecorated and remodeled. Truman tells of Teddy Roosevelt's children shooting spit wads at the presidential portraits, and of the ghosts that have been spotted walking the halls. Well written and easy to read. :-)

On to Best Little Stories From the White House: More Than 100 True Stories by C. Brian Kelly with Ingride Smyer. A wonderful collection of stories --- from the familiar (the Rose Garden) to the lesser known (Lady Bird Johnson locked herself out one night). Short entries, quick and easy to read ... you know, during commercials when watching TV! At the end is a nice collection of brief biographies on the First Ladies.

Next I sort of wandered over to a few more books about the Presidents. What happened when Grover Cleveland vanished for five days? Find out in Matthew Algeo's The President is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth. The country was facing a possible financial crisis and it was felt that if the public knew the president had cancer chaos would ensue, so the decision was made to do the necessary surgery in secret. The president boarded a friend's yacht (which he had done many times in the past) and had the tumor removed while out at sea.

The song "What do you do with a general (when he stops being a general)" from the movie White Christmas came to mind with this next book. Citizen-in-Chief: the Second Lives of the American Presidents by Leonard Venardo and Jennifer Weiss. From George Washington forward, it tells what each of the presidents did after they left the Oval Office. (They weren't all happy endings.)

Reading Hermit With Dog