Raymond Starzmann loves history ... maybe a little too much.
There are a lot of history buffs out there - myself among them - but nobody few can hold a candle to Raymond. When he was still a young boy, he began writing letters to retired politicians and statesmen and a great many of them wrote back. From these exchanges came telephone calls and even a few face-to-face meetings.
One of the politicians Starzmann connected with back in the 1960s was former President Harry S, Truman, and the two met several times. Is it any surprise then that Starzmann does what he does now - which is impersonate Truman in presentations and programs he gives some two or three times a week for schools, museums, historical societies and the like.
Actually, impersonate is not the right word for what he does. Maybe "inhabit" is. When he talks about Truman, he slips into the first person so easily that it's hard to tell where he ends and Truman begins.
Truman is not the only historical figure he inhabits - he also does programs as FDR, Teddy Roosevelt abd Adlai Stevenson (is there much call for that?), And his knowledge of history goes deeper than the 20th century. Talk with him for a bit, as I did Monday afternoon, and he's ready with an anecdote about James K. Polk, or James Garfield or John Quincy Adams.
One of the problems, as he sees it, over the last few years, is that Americans in general, and the country's leadership in particular, have forgotten their history. That is what drives him to put on Truman's suits and glasses and bring him back to life.
"History is to a nation what memory is to an individual," Starzmann said Monday. "If a nation forgets its history then it is disabled."
You get the sense that beyond red and blue, "D" and "R", that is what bothers him the most about the last eight years in Washington - a seeming aversion, almost anatagonism, to the perspective a study of history can provide.
That's the campaign trail Starzmann is on, and you can see him this Saturday, Oct. 11,, as Harry Truman at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. For information,call 802-257-0124.