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By Root 1304 0

bright early-morning sunshine. Here and there the road plunged into dense pine forests and led past collections of holiday cabins in the woods. Atlanta was only an hour’s drive to the north and the people here-abouts were clearly trying to cash in on that proximity. I passed through a little town called Pine Mountain, which seemed to have everything you could want in an inland resort. It was attractive and had nice shops. The only thing it lacked was a mountain, which was a bit of a disappointment considering its name. I had intentionally chosen this route because Pine Mountain conjured up to my simple mind a vision of clean air, craggy precipices, scented forests and tumbling streams – the sort of place where you might bump into John-Boy Walton. Still, who could blame the locals if they stretched the truth a little in the pursuit of a dollar? You could hardly expect people to drive miles out of their way to visit something called Pine Flat-Place.

The countryside became gradually more hilly, though obstinately uncraggy, before the road made a gentle descent into Warm Springs. For years I had been harbouring an urge to go there. I’m not sure why. I knew nothing about the place except that Franklin Roosevelt had died there. In the Register and Tribune Building in Des Moines the main corridor was lined with historic front pages which I found strangely absorbing when I was small. One of them said ‘President Roosevelt Dies at Warm Springs’, and I thought even then that it sounded like such a nice place to pass away.

In the event, Warm Springs was a nice place. There was just a main street, with an old hotel on one side and a row of shops on the other, but they had been restored as expensive boutiques and gift shops for visitors from Atlanta. It was all patently artificial – there was even outdoor Muzak, if you can stand it – but I quite liked it.

I drove out to the Little White House, about two miles outside town. The parking lot was almost empty, except for an old bus from which a load of senior citizens were disembarking. The bus was from the Calvary Baptist Church in some place like Firecracker, Georgia, or Bare-assed, Alabama. The old people were noisy and excited, like schoolchildren, and pushed in front of me at the ticket booth, little realizing that I wouldn’t hesitate to give an old person a shove, especially a Baptist. But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead.

I bought my ticket and quickly overtook the old people on the slope up to the Roosevelt compound. The path led through woods of tall pine trees that seemed to go up and up forever and sealed out the sunlight so effectively that the ground at their bases was bare, as if it had just been swept. The path was lined with large rocks from each state. Every governor had evidently been asked to contribute some hunk of native stone and here they were, lined up like a guard of honour. It’s not often you see an idea that stupid brought to fruition. Many had been cut in the shape of the state, then buffed to a glossy finish and engraved. But others, clearly not catching the spirit of the enterprise, were just featureless hunks with a terse little plaque saying ‘Delaware. Granite.’ Iowa’s contribution was, as expected, carefully middling. The stone had been cut to the shape of the state, but by someone who had clearly never attempted such a thing before. I imagine he had impulsively put in the lowest bid and was surprised to get the contract. At least the state had found a rock to send. I had half feared it might be a clump of dirt.

Beyond this unusual diversion was a white bungalow, which had formerly been a neighbouring home and was now a museum. As always with these things in America, it was well done and interesting. Photographs of Roosevelt at Warm Springs covered the walls and lots of his personal effects were on display in glass cases – his wheelchairs, crutches, leg-braces and other such implements. Some of these were surprisingly elaborate and exerted a morbid interest because F.D.R. was always careful not