Presidents Day! LBJ All The Way!
LBJ was certainly a boater, and I would bet, a Woody Boater to boot. He sure loved having fun on the lake . This story is a tad dated, but perfect for today. Presidents Day and LBJ’s boat is now fully restored and ready for the lake. LBJ Lake. It’s a Glastron, but a cool one.
A beast actually. The good news is one more fiberglass piece of history is saved. Here is the news report.
LBJ Sure loved his boating on the Lake. Here is some white house footage of him and his Amphacar. Apparently he loved to trick folks and drive right into the water. HA!
Now it gets even cooler, here is a wonderful web page at DOUBLE HEART RANCH on this boat CLICK HERE.
And of course the Classic Glastron Website is a fun little click, and wonderful folks CLICK HERE
The rest of the story is that anytime LBJ decided to go boating, they shut down Granite Shoals Lake so he could play…property owners are still mad. They are also mad that “their” lake was named after him!
Shutting down lakes, moving no fly zones. All the security is silly. Unlike royalty where suitable heirs are limited, presidents are easily replaced with hundreds of millions of potential candidates.
I did the LBJ Ranch tour many years ago, and they pointed out the ramp where he would “lose control” of the amphicar and drive his (un?)suspecting guests into the water. The thought of him driving guests in such a small non-Texas sized car had tohave raised suspicions.
There is also footage of the secret service running their Donzi Ski Sporters following LBJ with their radio gear on. LBJ always thought he could outrun them, but the secret service made sure that was not going to happen!
Nice!
Jim Frechette took us on a great lunch ride on LBJ once.
https://www.woodyboater.com/blog/2015/02/11/troy-goes-to-texas/
And then there was the peanut farmer president for Plains, Ga. which is near no lake at all and who sold the Presidential yacht Sequoya
When one of my friends would see a Glastron he would always say it was a “Classy Glassy”.
Didn’t get to comment yesterday. I like millions of others was on the road. I had a good friend Harold Reed while in the Navy, was stationed on the Presidential yacht during the Johnson administration. He had some great stories about “getting ready for LBJ” and taking Lucy and Linda Bird skiing along with what ever famous people they brought with them. His famous lines were ” nothing would out run our Donzi’s.
THIS MONTHS MOTOR BOATING HAS AN EXCELLENT ARTICEL ON GEORGE BUSH SR PRESIDENTIAL YACHTS AND
JOHN WAYNE