USA TODAY International Edition
Camp David’s Md. neighbors shrug off Trump’s ‘ rustic’ crack
It’s a camp, not ‘ super luxury’
THURMONT, MD. It was good enough for FDR to host Churchill, for the marriage of a president’s daughter, for a summit conference that produced one of the most important peace treaties of the 20th century.
But Camp David, the fabled presidential weekend retreat, is apparently not good enough for the master of Mar- a- Lago.
“Camp David is very rustic; it’s nice. You’d like it,” President Trump said in an interview last month with two European newspapers. “You know how long you’d like it? For about 30 minutes.”
That put- down offended some people here.
“Can I poke him in the nose?” asked Donna Voellinger of the Thurmont Historical Society, who said much of the town’s civic identity and all of its global reputation rest on its connection to the place a few miles up the mountain. Most respond with equanimity. “I don’t worry one way or the other if the president comes to Camp David,” said Kirby Delauter, 52, who met the candidate last year at a rally and keeps a framed, Trump- autographed admission ticket in his office. His vote in November helped Trump carry the town and Frederick County.
“Camp David is very rustic; it’s nice. You’d like it. You know how long you’d like it? For about 30 minutes.” President Trump
“Whether the president likes Camp David or not means nothing to me,” said Mark Long, 64, who voted for Hillary Clinton. “He says a lot of crazy things. This is not that important, compared to what else he’s doing wrong.”
Both acknowledge the obvious: This president, like his predecessor, is a city guy more at home on the golf course than in the woods.
Camp David “looks like a camp — a very nice camp but a camp. It’s not the super luxury he’s used to,” Marty Burns said. He served at the camp as a Marine in the 1980s, met a bank teller who became his wife and settled here.
Their indifference to Trump’s insult and his absence — he has yet to visit as president — is largely explained by the fact that, except for the sound of a helicopter or an unexpected road closing, most residents don’t even know whether the president is at Camp David. Several residents say President Obama visited only a few times, when in fact he was there dozens of times, including his most recent birthday.
When the president is there, it has almost no impact on life outside the electrified fence. “We’re proud of our association with Camp David, but it makes no difference to us if the president is in residence or not,” Mayor John Kinnaird said.
Camp David was part of a New Deal project to build several camps in the Catoctin Mountains of north- central Maryland. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roo- sevelt, looking for a cool, secluded summer retreat, selected one of the camps and named it “Shangri- La” after the Himalayan country in James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon.
The camp consisted of a series of cabins that have been expanded, winterized, remodeled or replaced over the years. In 1953, President Eisenhower renamed the place after his grandson.
As the closest town, Thurmont had a window on history. Roosevelt brought British Prime Minister Winston Churchill down into town for a drink at a speakeasy. Harry Truman showed up at the Masonic Lodge for a meeting. The Kennedy children came down the hill for ice cream, Nancy Reagan to buy fabric.
Presidents from FDR to Ford attended Sunday church services in town. Kinnaird, 62, recalls throwing snowballs in the direction of Lyndon Johnson. Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush ventured outside Camp David for the fly- fishing, Bill Clinton to golf and host a dinner party.
When Bush’s daughter Doro was married at Camp David in 1992, many relatives stayed in town at the Cozy Inn.
Trump seems likely to weekend at Mar- a- Lago, his Palm Beach club; his golf course in New Jersey; or his penthouse at Trump Tower in Manhattan, where his wife and son live.
But Kinnaird said Camp David might win over Trump as it won over other skeptics. “It’s a hideaway,” he said, “and sooner or later everybody needs a hideaway.”