Who were the best (and worst) presidential vacationers?

He could boogie (Image via Wikipedia)

With the Obamas on holiday in Martha’s Vineyard, curious readers will want to know the answers to such vacationing-President trivia questions as: Where did previous Presidents vacation? Did they bring their mistresses with them? What level sun block did they use? And most important, which Presidents vacationed with style and grace and which were incompetent, blundering nincompoops? Herewith, the answers:

George Washington: Not only our first President but the first to vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, which at the time was owned by his wife, an enthusiastic gardener and grower of grapes.

Thomas Jefferson: The ever-philosophical Jefferson believed one could best vacation in small, rural communities with hard-working, ordinary Americans who held traditional values such as desiring sex with the more attractive slaves.

James Polk: Perhaps the most timid presidential vacationer. Afraid to venture too far from White House for fear that the Mexican War would break out without him, Polk once spent a rainy afternoon in Chevy Chase, Maryland, searching unsuccessfully for a beach.

Rutherford B. Hayes: A reclusive man who insisted on privacy, Hayes liked to go on secret trips with Chester Arthur and Millard Fillmore because no one ever recognized any of them.

Abraham Lincoln: A Civil War buff, he enjoyed traveling to battlefields and making speeches he’d scribbled on the backs of envelopes. A stickler for authenticity, he even went so far as to dress in 19^th-century garb.

Theodore Roosevelt: Often went hunting in Africa, where on one safari, he bagged 3,456 wildebeest, 47 lions, 172 elephants, 12 giraffes, a rabid hyena and a Presbyterian missionary. The latter, stuffed, may still be viewed at the Smithsonian Institute, if you slip a few bucks to the bearded docent on the third floor in the back.

William Howard Taft: Defying his doctors, who had pronounced him too obese to rise from his chair in the Oval Office, Taft journeyed to Coney Island, New York, where he spent a delightful week enjoying the famed Steeplechase ride, the parachute jump and the tunnel of love. He also won the hot-dog eating contest, consuming 16,000 wieners in an hour.

Woodrow Wilson: A strict and formal man, Wilson found it difficult to let his hair down and have fun but discovered late in life that when boogying in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, he was able for the first time to drink lots of beer and ogle scantily clad college girls without fear of committing a mortal sin.

Calvin Coolidge: Famous for his taciturnity, Coolidge loosened up considerably when on vacation. He loved to fish the mountain streams of his native Vermont, where he discussed politics, sports and history with the trout and bass. “Fish are smarter than you think,” he once confided to the King of Portugal.

Harry S Truman: A fiercely determined and scrappy little vacationer, Truman would start walking rapidly in a random direction with the White House press corps in pursuit and keep going until informed that his vacation had ended.

John F. Kennedy: Viewing vacations as a necessary release from the rough-and-tumble arenas of politics and sex, JFK retreated to the highly competitive family compound at Hyannis Port, Mass., and quickly fell into a nonstop round of yacht racing, touch football, pie-throwing contests, epee duels, cockfighting and nude wrestling with his brothers. Despite threats and tantrums, JFK’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was banned from these sports because he cheated.

Richard M. Nixon: Paranoid and secretive, Nixon resented the whole concept of vacationing, which he regarded as a Communist plot. He allowed himself only one vacation and that grudgingly when wife Pat and daughters Julie and Tricia threatened suicide if not taken to Disneyland. Nixon stayed outside in the parking lot, quizzing his Secret Service agents on state capitals until his family returned.

Ronald Reagan: Steeped in the culture of renaissance Europe which he had once seen a movie about, Reagan headed for the continent whenever he could get away from his Presidential duties, astounding natives and tourists alike with his arcane impromptu dissertations on art, history, architecture and literature, all delivered in fluent Italian or French.

George W. Bush: Never actually went off vacation, as far as anyone knows. Stayed at the ranch in Crawford, Texas. Watched sports on TV. Drank beer. Caught quick catnaps during timeouts so as not to miss the action. Avoided reading briefing papers, which at one point piled up to a height of eight feet before Laura threw them out.