A Guide to the Best of Southern California : BROWSING : The King and I

If you thought Watergate was a national embarrassment, wait till you see the kitschy doodads up for sale at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace gift shop. What could be more dignified than a $2.50 flying disc emblazoned with the “Museum Presidential Eagle,” a bird that bears an uncanny resemblance to the one on the back of a dollar bill? The glow-in-the-dark flag shorts, priced to move at a patriotic $12.95, perhaps? Maybe.

But the shop’s most popular item, says library spokeswoman Sandy Quinn, is the $14.50 T-shirt with a photo of Nixon shaking hands with the King--Elvis Presley. (Also available as a pin, magnet, postcard . . .) And somewhere among the R. N.-signature golf balls, neckties and polo shirts, you should be able to dig up a poster-sized reproduction of that thing Nixon swore to uphold . . . the Constitution.

Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd., Yorba Linda; (714) 993-5075.