Two years ago, I was tired. I was burned out. I was disillusioned with the civil litigation system. Those of you who are longtime readers might recall that I also no longer had much use for a large paycheck.
So I sent out a bevy of applications for low-paying positions at National Parks and historic sites throughout the country. I figured I could learn something different, hopefully make a few new friends, and not hate 85% of the people I encountered every day (including myself) as was the case when I was working at a Biglaw firm.
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The first to get back to me and extend a job offer was the Charles Lindbergh House and Museum (sorry Crater Lake, couple weeks too late, maybe another time). I had just finished reading A. Scott Berg’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Lindbergh biography, and had become fascinated with the groundbreaking aviator.
In case you need a little history refresher, Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic. This was a big deal in 1927. When he took off from Roosevelt Field in New York, this confident young flyer was unknown to the broader world. When he landed 33 1/2 hours later at Le Bourget Aerodrome outside of Paris, he was the most famous man alive.
Others weren’t so lucky (or so skilled). Half a dozen men were killed at various stages in their attempts to complete the New York to Paris route before Lindbergh succeeded. He had courage.
Lindbergh overcame tragedy, like when his first son was kidnapped and murdered in 1934. He tried to help people, working for years on a lifesaving medical device and passionately advocating for environmental causes. He always found ways to serve his country, even when figures as powerful as Franklin Delano Roosevelt stood in his way.
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Of course, FDR only felt like he had to stand in Lindbergh’s way because the man could be a monster. In 1938, German shitbird Hermann Göring awarded Lindbergh a medal that he refused to return even after the depths of Nazi depravity became apparent. Lindbergh was always too close to fascism, one of the original America Firsters, someone who unashamedly referenced the “Jewish problem.” He even got some skin in the eugenics game by fathering children with three German women, unbeknownst to his lovely wife, Anne.
Lindbergh was a hero and a villain. He was good and evil. Like all of us, only on a grander scale.
The lessons of this man’s life could not be more relevant to the national mess we now find ourselves in, and I got to help explain them to thousands of eager visitors to the Charles Lindbergh House and Museum. We made sure people had fun, but we didn’t ever shy away from the controversial aspects of Lindbergh’s — and in turn, our nation’s — past either. What’s more fun than swastika medals and secret German mistresses anyhow?
The best part: my coworkers. Instead of courtrooms filled with hatred, I had an oak forest, a museum, and a historic home filled with people I came to care a great deal about.
As a lawyer, I am frequently underwhelmed with the quality of my compatriots. As a part-time historian, I was constantly overwhelmed with pride in the team I was a part of. If you want proof of my coworkers’ brilliance, go ahead and read some of it yourself.
As of the end of August, it’s all gone. The Charles Lindbergh House and Museum has been permanently shuttered, the staff laid off. Just not in the budget for the statewide historical society that ran it, we were told, by one of the useless executives whose six-figure salary could have easily been sacrificed instead.
Charles Lindbergh’s former home will gradually rot away, the rich history that once sprang to life there silenced. People will start to forget the bravery of a farm boy who dreamed of crossing oceans. They won’t remember how he was seduced by antisemitism and America First nonsense. People won’t be inspired to take bold risks of their own; they won’t be on their guard about making the same mistakes Lindbergh did.
My friends, whose every movement, every word, every facial expression had been imbued with such meaning as they educated and enchanted the public, will have nowhere to go with their extensive Lindbergh knowledge. It’s now locked away inside them, to struggle with, alone.
It’s not the end of the world. But it’s the end of a little world that I loved.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].