ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 14, 1997 TAG: 9704150045
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BEN BEAGLE
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
We, as in the United States of America, may pay the estate of Richard M. Nixon $26 million as compensation for taking his private papers. Boy, I'll bet the starving Armenians would like a piece of that action - not to mention old yours truly here.
If I've got this right, the estate would turn over the papers to the Nixon library in California and the government would take over operation of the library.
Boy, what a deal. Right? Let's you and me run out there and do some research.
Maybe we could even look up some of that stuff Nixon tried to steal when he left the White House.
Of this $26 million, the Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation would spend $8 million to build a structure partly underground - which seems appropriate to me - to keep these papers.
There are some people, The Associated Press reported, who don't think the above is that good an idea.
My good name sullied|
They say that presidential libraries try to gloss over such things as impeachment, obstruction of justice, smoking guns and burglaries.
Which is to say the truth gets skewed around a little bit - which shouldn't surprise anybody, including your Aunt Zelda.
I will never see the Benjamin Stuart Beagle Jr. Library, and neither will you.
But if there was one, I can see the curators putting spins on things.
They would explain all those letters I sent to the Mothers March of Dimes by saying I was an honest man who wanted to be fair with everybody.
In fact, I was pretty hacked off because they wouldn't believe I hadn't volunteered to canvass the neighborhood, and they kept sending me cards asking where the money was. These letters obviously make me appear not to like the Mothers March of Dimes.
There's no written record of the fact that I finally called an 800 number and maybe got the whole thing straightened out. There would be no reason to explain why I was stupid enough to keep on sending letters that were never answered when the 800 number was available.
The librarians would love the letter to the Uptown Puzzle Club, complaining it had missed me in the month of December. In this letter I stressed the fact that my grandsons give me a membership in the club for Christmas every year.
Illegible memos|
This is something to work with. Grandfatherly type; solving puzzles in ink. Well, why not? Nobody would know that I cheated and looked up the answers.
The library people wouldn't have to worry about any tapes or deleted expletives. I don't do tapes. Sound of my own voice makes me sick.
There is one videotape made in Radford some time ago. I intend to steal that pretty soon now.
There are also some interesting canceled checks and some old notes that will be safe because even I can't read them anymore.
One example is a short phrase I wrote on March 22 of this year that appears to read ``werst bollock.''
I dunno. Maybe I accidentally wrote something in Sanskrit. Might be the name of an obscure member of the Board of Supervisors.
It'll be up to my estate to make an offer to the government. I'd think maybe $5.29 might be about right.
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