Ed Nixon, the youngest brother of the late President Richard Nixon, has just published a book, “The Nixons: A Family Portrait.”
Ed Nixon is plugging the book, and a report in the Everett (Wash.) Herald has an interesting aside during an interview with him:
Of all his memories, none were told with more delight than a tale of a long-ago driving trip. “Dick had finished law school, and he ordered a new car — a black Oldsmobile coupe. I was almost 9,” Ed Nixon recalled.
They took a train to Chicago, then traveled to Michigan to pick up the car. With Dick Nixon driving the shiny Olds and little brother Ed in the passenger seat, they drove home on Route 66, stopping in Claremore, Okla., to see the Will Rogers Memorial and in Arizona to see Meteor Crater.
“I became a map reader,” Ed Nixon said. Seeing the crater whetted his interest in geology. Dick Nixon, he said, always pushed him to learn.
Doing the math on Ed Nixon’s age (he born in May 1930), that road trip would have been from 1938 to 1939. Richard Nixon graduated from Duke law school in 1937 and went back to his native California shortly afterward. The Will Rogers Memorial wasn’t dedicated until November 1938, so the road trip more likely was in 1939. So Ed Nixon saw and traveled on Route 66 when it was less than 15 years old.
In case you’re wondering, Ed Nixon didn’t have much to say about Watergate, although there was evidence to suggest that he had at least some involvement in the scandal that brought down his brother.