How a Check for $6.36 Brought Down the Nixon Administration

Well, it's not quite that simple, but still...  I've just finished reading John Dean's latest book, The Nixon Defense.  He and a group of students working under him, listened to all the thousands of hours of Nixon tapes and that led to this book that explains what Nixon knew and when he knew it.  The book is a big one, the narrative is over 600 pages, plus appendices and lots of end notes.  I ended up having to check it out from our local library three times before I got it finished.

The book is very interesting, and well worth reading.  It's amazing that anything else got done following Watergate as Nixon and his staff were spending several hours a day, up to five hours a day, on the cover-up.  And, once the cover-up started to unravel, they began a cover-up of the cover-up.

Anyway, back to the $6.36 check.  This check, drawn by Howard Hunt, was found with the Watergate burglars.   He didn't want to pay the expensive in-state dues for his local country club, so wrote a check to pay for the cheaper out-of-state dues, even though he lived in-state.  And he gave the check to one of the Watergate burglars to mail from Miami.   I hadn't known about this check before, and I think it's symptomatic of what was wrong with the Nixon administration.

Is it Congratulations or Commiserations?

Well, I've been elected President of our Condo Owner's Association.  Lest you think that's some sort of high honor, let me explain.  Our board is supposed to be composed of four members.  At our annual meeting, we only had two people willing to even run for the board.  And, not enough owners showed up to have a quorum, so we ended up having to reschedule.  By the rescheduled annual meeting, a third person had agreed to run.  Which still left us one short.  Finally, due to a write in vote, we ended up with four board members.

Then came the first board meeting, and the need to elect officers.  No one else was willing to step up to be President, so I reluctantly agreed.  We'll see how things go.

A trip to Dubuque for Thanksgiving, where we had turkey dinner at the assisted living center where Mom and Dad live.  Mom and Dad are finally in a double room, after some months in separate single rooms.

As for stitching, here is my latest finish.

Samba by Kathy Rees, Needle Delights

The Quad Cities Aren't the Same Without Cher

Originally, Cher was scheduled to give a concert in Moline in October.  Reservations made, cat sitter engaged, and then due to illness, Cher rescheduled, and finally cancelled her appearance.  Since everything was already in place, we made an overnight trip to the Quad Cities anyway.  And had an enjoyable low-key stay.  We did some shopping (the JoAnn's store in Davenport is so much bigger and better than our local store) and visited the Putnam Museum.  The Putnam used to be a museum with an IMAX theater attached.  It now seems to be an IMAX with a museum attached.  There is very little museum left, and room after room seem to be turning into children's activities centers.

We also visited the Figge Art Museum, which was the highlight of the trip as far as I am concerned. The Figge has much of the University of Iowa Art Museum on "loan" since the flood of 2008 flooded the UI Art Museum.  So it was fun to re-visit the UI pieces.

Earlier in the month, we saw the play "Xanadu."  The play originally scheduled was "Around the World in 80 Days," which we were looking forward to.  We kept our tickets since the reviews said that the play was much better than the movie.  Unfortunately, that's not saying much.  This is the one and only play I've seen so far that I would not attend again.   And unfortunately, the next season for our community theater doesn't look that good, so we may not be attending many plays next year.