Today we have a story that will speak to the sandwich lover and/or the history lover in you.
It’s about a man in Illinois, a president of the United States, and the sandwich that’s a link between them.
The story starts 60 years ago this week in the community of Sullivan, in central Illinois.
Then-Vice President Richard Nixon, who was running for president against John F. Kennedy, came to Sullivan to campaign at a cookout.
He met with some of the locals, sat down to take a few bites from a Buffalo barbecue sandwich and then left the table to give a campaign speech.
(We don’t know whether Nixon disliked the sandwich or was only eating a little because he was working. If it had been up to him, though, the meal probably would have been different. Fun fact: Richard Nixon loved to snack on cottage cheese with ketchup.)
Among the attendees at the cookout was a young Boy Scout named Steve Jenne.
While everyone else at the picnic saw a half-eaten sandwich, Jenne saw history.
As Jenne told the Decatur Herald & Review, he walked over to the table, grabbed the sandwich, and rode home to ask his mother to keep it in the freezer.
She put it in a glass jar, where it’s stayed pretty well ever since, a frozen souvenir from the 1960 presidential campaign.
In the 1980s, Jenne even brought the sandwich to “The Tonight Show,” where then-host Johnny Carson gave him another half-eaten sandwich. (Fellow guest Steve Martin threw in an autographed paper plate, which he said he’d used earlier to eat some chicken salad.)
Jenne has collected half-eaten items from other celebrities over the years, but he says the centerpiece of his collection is still the Nixon sandwich, still in the glass jar, and hopefully without any new bites taken out of it since the day it was served to Richard Nixon 60 years ago.
For those still staying at home, missing the outside world, there are lots of soundscapes you can use to remember the places you used to go, like restaurants, coffee shops, even the sounds of the public library.
For those who actually miss going into the office, with all those cubicles and conference tables, Stéphane Pigeon has created Calm Office, the sounds of clicking computer keys, fax machines, and people in the background gossiping about that coworker that always manages to reply all on the company email.
Watch now: Richard Nixon ate a sandwich in Sullivan 60 years ago. Here’s the story of the man who kept it. (Decatur Herald&Review)
Because People Miss The Office Sounds (Neatorama)
