Probably the most unhappy man in the little (pop. 17,500) city of Thomasville, Ga. was Billy Joe Lewis, a contractor. On urgent orders Billy Joe had been hustled out to Milestone, the plantation off the Tallahassee Road owned by Treasury Secretary George Magoffin Humphrey, and asked to paint the living room of one of the Humphrey guest cottages. He found the room beautifully paneled in knotty pine, checked back to be sure there wasn't a mistake somewhere. There wasn't; the Humphreys were expecting the Dwight Eisenhowers for a visit, and during her 1956 visit to Thomasville, Mamie had remarked that the cottage's living room would be just perfect with white walls and pink curtains.
Last week Mamie was luxuriously installed amid the white walls and pink curtains and, no outdoor girl, kept herself thoroughly entertained during her husband's forays into the fields and greens. She arranged to have Kinescopes shown of a few TV shows (the Mayerling spectacular, What's My Line?) that she had missed in Washington, slept until 10:30 in the morning, devoted the rest of her time to a shopping tour in nearby Thomasville, auto rides into the blossoming countryside, sessions at a canasta-like card game called Bolivia with her mother, with Hostess Mrs. George Humphrey and the Eisenhowers' Gettysburg neighbor, Mrs. George Allen.
Flush in the Brush. Ike's routine was more rigorous. Breakfasting (on steak) in the main house at 8 a.m. with George Humphrey and such friends as Lawyer George Allen and White House Physician Howard Snyder, Ike wore the happy visage of a man on a holiday. Soon, with his lightweight under-over Belgian .410, he rode out with his cronies into the cool, piney woods aboard a mule-drawn hunting wagon. Plantation Owner Humphrey's prized pointers worked the fields, sniffing for quail. (Ike's own English setters, Art and George, were a bust in the South.) When a dog froze like a statue, the Milestone dog handler quietly called "Point." Ike climbed down from the wagon, got set to shoot; the handler began to rustle the brush with a leather thong, sent a covey skittering into the air. Ike, an expert shot, blasted away. Twice he knocked down three birds with only two shots.
Short on the Green. When he was not hunting, the President was tee-deep in golf. Dressed warmly in a grey zipper-front sweater, reddish slacks, a checked cap and brown golf shoes, Ike turned up at the nearby Glen Arven Country Club, took a few practice swings for photographers—becoming the first President of the U.S. to model a golf grip—surveyed the first green with a sigh: "One of the most discouraging things in the world is to walk up to the first tee, 440 yards and a par 4 hole, and let go." But let go he did, with a whacking 225-yard drive that sent the President gaily tracking down the course with Secret Service men chugging along behind in motorized carts.