Nixon Library hosting Holiday Train Exhibit -- Reflection of a President with Many Interests

While living only a few miles from Yorba Linda, California for most of 2008, I was a frequent visitor to the Nixon Presidential Library there. After my first visit, the serenity of the place and my interest in exploring a bit more of that period in US history kept drawing me back. Nixon, no matter what else history might say about him, was not boring. His story, which winds its way through both some of the darkest and disgraceful periods of US History and some of the most glorious periods, has both a Dickensian and Shakespearean quality to it, as he rises from a poor, lower-middle class family to become President of the United States, only to fall from power in the Watergate scandal.

The Library now also showcases the multi-interests of the man who brought it into being. For instance, Nixon was a decent pianist and loved music, especially piano. (Below is a youtube video of his playing the piano on the Jack Parr Tonight Show.) He is also known to have jammed with the band at the Grand Ole Opry, and accompanied Pearl Bailey at a White House performance. And the music lives on at his library with free concerts every Sunday.

Another of his interests was trains. Trains run everywhere through Yorba Linda and Orange County California where Nixon grew up, carrying cargo and passengers east and west, north and south. It's no wonder he developed a fascination for them. Nixon reflected in his memoirs, "In the daytime I could see the smoke from the steam engines. Sometimes at night I was awakened by the whistle of a train, and then I dreamed of the far-off places I wanted to visit someday."

This holiday season a special exhibit at the Library and Museum will take visitors on a magical journey through the world of miniature trains. One of the largest such collections ever assembled, A Holiday Festival of Trains features a landscape of toy trains, many whistling through tiny snow-covered turn of the century villages, a 1890 Bavarian castle, and forested mountain passes with over 5,000 miniature trees.

A Holiday Festival of Trains will be on display from Monday, November 16, 2009 through Sunday, January 10, 2010, and is included with museum admission. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is located at 18001 Yorba Linda Boulevard, Yorba Linda, California 92886. The Library is open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $9.95 adults, $3.75 children 7 to 11, free for children 6 and younger; $6.95 for seniors 62 and up, and students; $5.95 for active military.