A Texan Looks At Lady Bird (and Loves the View)

In less than twelve months, Texas (and the world) has lost Nellie Connally, Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, and now Lady Bird Johnson, four Democratic dames beloved by all. A Texas First Lady, a Governor, a writer, and an American First Lady.

One of the things Austin is known for is its downtown hike-and-bike trail that runs around what's called Town Lake, which was created when the Colorado River was dammed-up in 1960.

After Lyndon Johnson left the presidency and moved back to Texas in 1969, foregoing reelection because of Vietnam, his wife Lady Bird was instrumental in the creation of the trail. She chaired the local committee in 1971 that drew up the plan that Austin is now famous for: a 10 mile urban ribbon in the bosom of the city, free of all but naturalness and beauty, like the woman herself. Some wanted to put lights on it and set up hot dog stands, but it blessedly remains as she envisioned it, a sacred space for communing within the all-too-man-made, developed world we live in.

Her work to beautify the nation's capital during her husband's turbulent presidency also stands as a testament to that same innate consciousness.

She was like that.

"You do what you can where you are," she often said, paraphrasing the "think globally, act locally" mantra from the 1960's that means even more today.

She was like that.

The obits will say what they will, and they will get the facts straight, but people are more than just the timeline of their lives.

The woman born in east Texas in 1912, who graduated Marshall High School and the University of Texas, who had a business sense and married an up-and-coming politician, has left us a legacy we must honor.

She couldn't single-handedly order the removal of automobile junk yards that sprang up alongside the interstates and became such visual pollution after the 1950's, but she wanted them to at least be hidden from view, and she saw that it became part of federal highway legislation. Most states followed suit with their own laws, and there is less blight as we drive across America today, thanks to her efforts.

She was like that.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which she founded along with the actress Helen Hayes, carries on the work she started, and each year our roadways are bursting with color because of her commitment.

She was also a tireless campaigner in other ways. When the Democratic senator from Virginia, Charles Robb, faced the corrupt and criminal Republican Oliver North in 1994, I ran into then-81 year old Mrs. Johnson just before the November election at an Austin restaurant. As she was walking out the door I said to her, "I sure hope your son-in-law wins next week."

She instantly lit up and moved in my direction. Her failing eyesight brought her right up to my face for a better view.

"Oh, I do, too," she said forcefully as she clutched my hands. "I am just sick about that race. If you know anybody in Virginia, you must call them and get them to vote. It is so important, and I am working so hard from here. I wish I could be there right now." She added that she was headed there in a few days.

Robb won in a squeaker. Former First Lady Nancy Reagan is credited with helping North's defeat by telling an audience just a week before the election that "Ollie North has a great deal of trouble separating fact from fantasy....he lied to my husband and lied about my husband."

Nancy was no doubt correct, but I know in my heart that Ollie's folly on election day was ultimately a First Lady tag-team effort, Republican and Democrat!

Thank you, Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson, for a life well lived, for all of us.