City Gets Ready for All the Attention : Yorba Linda: Nixon’s birthplace will greet the dignitaries and crowds with flags flying and souvenirs for sale.

On Main Street, where Richard M. Nixon swept the floors of a neighborhood hardware store as a boy, Old Glory hangs prominently above every other storefront and the trees are trimmed in red, white and blue.

It’s nothing short of a hero’s welcome for Yorba Linda’s most famous native son.

“It’s like having Clint Eastwood come into town, riding his horse,” said Chris Parker, manager of Mimi’s Cafe. “Politicians are like celebrities, and Nixon is the epitome of a politician.”

For this city of 52,000 that few outside of Orange County know, today’s historic visit by four surviving Presidents--George Bush, Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan--offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bask in the national spotlight and to show the world that Yorba Linda is more than just another stop along the strip shopping malls of Southern California.

“This is a real neat thing to have happen for this community,” said Yorba Linda Mayor Gene Wisner. “We’ll always have the birthplace, and that’s something that can never be taken away.”

As a swarm of news reporters and TV cameras began descending, residents were taking great pains to make a good impression. The sidewalks had been freshly scrubbed, homes were sporting American flags, and gardeners quickly planted flowers near the businesses along the motorcade route.

The event is also bringing out the business savvy in everyone.

A gas station a few blocks from the library was hawking dedication parking spaces for $15 Wednesday.

“I figure, when they had the ground-breaking, I couldn’t even do any business for answering questions about how to get to the library, so I don’t feel guilty at all,” station owner Greg Friga said. The station attendants said they were planning to come to work in tuxedos for the event.

Elsewhere, excited store owners had stocked display windows with Nixon memorabilia, restaurants were stockpiling extra food, and early birds began rolling into town in RVs to hunt for parking spaces.

Some of the hotter items included a Nixon teddy bear sporting a red velvet vest emblazoned with a commemorative presidential seal--it was fetching $275. Old Life magazine covers of the former President and First Family were going for $5. There were Nixon mugs, bumper stickers, ribbons, campaign buttons and a T-shirt showing Nixon with Ford, Reagan and Bush.

At Awards Fair, a Main Street trophy shop, owner Michael Groo and his parents had been up half the night engraving Nixon medallions with the presidential seal and putting the finishing touches on commemorative ribbons and on tiles with a likeness of the farmhouse where Nixon was born.

Groot, 29, whose father is a former mayor of Yorba Linda, said he has been a Nixon fan since the early ‘70s, when Nixon made a campaign stop in his first hometown. Nixon shook his hand, Groot says, and he “refused to wash” that hand for weeks.

“It’s wonderful that he’s getting his due after such a long time,” Groot said as a computer engraving machine was spewing out medallions.

Many residents--even Democrats--said they will attend the dedication ceremony today. “I just want to show my son the Presidents,” said Kaye Johnson, 42, who described herself as a registered Democrat. “I like Bush a lot, and I also like his wife, Barbara.”

Even the less enthusiastic seemed to be swept up in the hoopla despite themselves.

Ken Stack, 31, who lives a block from the library, described the building as “neat,” although he added, “it doesn’t do much for me.” The American flag flying from Stack’s roof will probably be among the first things visitors notice as they near the library. “I figured with four Presidents coming to town, it was the least I could do,” he said.