Today we celebrated our 38th Presidents 102nd birthday! Not only is he the only president to never be elected to either the office of the presidency or the vice-presidency, I have read in several places he is the only president who can't be traced back to George Washington! (by blood or marriage)! I, for some reason find that to be a really interesting connection.
Anyway, not only is it Gerald Ford's birthday, it's also my moms! We both share a birthday with presidents (so does my nephew, Garrett!), but she actually got to meet the president she shares a birthday with. Herbert Hoover and Rutherford Birchard Hayes were both long gone by the time Garrett and I showed up. So, a very happy birthday to her as well!
The boys awoke this morning to their owl mail. I've been using the same website for presidential worksheets for awhile now, and it's kind of nice because the boys will put in for requests for the type of things they want. It's funny the night before when you hear your kids ask "Hey, can I get a Gerald Ford word search?"
As always, after lunch we started in on our toy time line (after a desperate search for Michigan which involved moving and then cleaning out from under the refrigerator). I also had to improvise for Gerald Ford, since PEZ has only made up to LBJ. (But it November I hear the rest of them are going to come out!!)
Leslie Lynch King Jr.(just stay with me here) was born on July 14, 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska. Leslie Jr.'s mom, Dorothy had been married to Leslie Sr. for only 10 months when junior was born. She had quickly figured out she had married a lying, abusive, short-tempered drunk.
A few days after Leslie Jr. was born, Leslie Sr. got super drunk, came home, and threatened to kill his wife and newborn son with a butcher knife. To no surprise, Dorothy was like 'alright, I'm out', and moved back to her home state of Michigan and in with her parents with her 13 day old son in tow.
To nobody's surprise, Dorothy got full custody, and Leslie Sr. disappeared, avoiding his child support and all. (Leslie Sr.'s father however, did sent Dorothy money until he died 17 years later).
Two years later, Dorothy met Gerald Rudolff Ford, a salesman in his family owned paint and varnish business. Gerald was everything Leslie Sr. wasn't, the two were married and Gerald took on Leslie Jr. like he was his own, never treating him like a step-child. The couple had three more sons: Thomas, Richard and James.
At two years old, Leslie Lynch King Jr. took on his (step)father's name and became Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr instead, and everyone began to call him Jerry. Little Jerry was not told of his biological father or the tramatic first few days of his life. He instead had a very peaceful, loving upbringing. The Ford house had three rules Jerry would follow the rest of his life: Tell the truth, work hard, and come to dinner on time.
Jerry joined the boy scouts and earned the rank of Eagle Scout (the only president to do so). He was an excellent student (enjoying history and government the most) and voted most popular. He became captain of his high school football team playing center and got himself a job waiting tables at a restaurant in Grand Rapids. Oh, and sometime during his teenage years he was told about his biological father.
Shortly after that, deadbeat Leslie showed up at the restaurant. They had a superficial conversation, Leslie Sr. gave Jerry $25, and that was it. Jerry never saw him again. Leslie Sr. got married again and had three more kids, none of which Jerry would ever meet. (Leslie Sr. died in 1941, long before Jerry became president).
Jerry got noticed by college recruiters and ended up at the University of Michigan. He played center, linebacker, and long-snapper, and for his sophomore and junior years the team was undefeated. But Jerry's senior year the team won just one game. He was the star of the team anyway. His coaches said of him "he's the one guy who would stay and fight a losing battle."
Jerry's #48 jersey would later be retired at the University of Michigan. After college, his high football IQ, attention to detail, athleticism, and shockingly high threshold for taking blows to the head resulted in offers to play for the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions.
But Jerry had other plans, so he turned down an NFL contract and ended up at Yale for Law School.
Without the money to pay for it (or really the grades either), he was accepted to the school after accepting jobs as both an assistant football coach and the boxing coach. (Even though he had no boxing experience!)
Jerry had some other jobs too. He spent some time being a male model and even appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine, oh and he worked as a park ranger at Yellowstone National Park (feeding bears, because I guess in the 30's that was a real job!)
But then, you know, Pearl Harbor strikes and like JFK and George H.W. Bush he heads off to the Navy. Jerry spends his time in the Navy as a naval fitness instructor (teaching big tough Navy men how to be bigger, tougher Navy men), but he wants to see more action so he requests to go out on the USS Monterey. This is a serious light air-craft carrier. It was involved in nearly every major battle in South Pacific, and it even survived a typhoon (the three other ships with it at the time did not share the same fate.) At one point during the typhoon the boat tipped 25 degrees to one side, and a fire broke out. Jerry (who for all his athleticism was also very clumsy) lost his footing on the deck, slipped, and started sliding into the ocean. His foot caught hold of the deck, and Jerry managed to pull himself up and put out the fire. Look, it's no parachuting out of your plane that's going down, or rescuing your crew mate by pulling them by their life jacket string in your teeth while you swim through the ocean but it is something.
And Jerry is recognized with 10 battle stars to go along with his eagle scout badge.
After the war, Jerry returned home to Michigan where he was bitten by the political bug, thanks to his dad (he was county Republican chairman). He decided he was going to run for the U.S. House of Representatives, when he met Elizabeth Ann Bloomer. Elizabeth, who went by Betty, was going through a divorce at the time, and so the two decided to keep their relationship quiet through the primary (because nobody running for office wants to be accused of moving in on someone's wife before the ink is dry on those divorce papers). But once he was a real bonafide candidate and she was a real bonafied divorcee, the two lovebirds (who apparently were famously affectionate) got married!
Jerry won the election and headed off to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent for Michigan..
..and the couple had four kids: Micheal, Jack, Steven and Susan.
Jerry quickly made a name for himself in Congress as a hardworking, honest politician (I guess that wasn't an oxymoron in the 50's). He had integrity and the respect of his colleagues from both parties. He never lied, told a half truth, or did anything he didn't think was right. But, he also never wrote a single piece of legislation. Instead he spent his time helping with negotiations and reconciling arguments, which I mean, that seems like that job could fill a whole lot of time when we're talking about Congress.
But now it's November 1963, and JFK is in Texas.
And well, we all know how that turned out.
So LBJ becomes president. (You have to wait until next month to see what a pompous self-absorbed creepy dude he was) LBJ and Jerry were not the best of buddies. LBJ once said Jerry played "too much football without a helmet", and later "Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time". Ouch.
But LBJ assigned him to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of JFK, anyway. (He was tasked with writing a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald)
It didn't much matter that LBJ wasn't a Jerry Ford fan, because he ended up as Minority Leader of the House anyway.
Eventually LBJ was out and Nixon was in (holy geez, we are going way back with this link, he was the 2nd presidential birthday we ever did, I was so inexperienced back then!). With a republican (who might be a cheater but isn't a cheater at least in the marriage department )now in office, Jerry switches gears and starts supporting the White House agenda.
Then, you know, my parents got married and meanwhile in D.C.....
Besides Watergate, Spiro Agnew was as shady as shady can be and gets in trouble for money laundering and tax evasion WHILE HE HAD BEEN GOVERNOR! (He has to be one of the most disgraced Vice Presidents ever, right? Well, except maybe for that "murderous" Aaron Burr, RIGHT?!)
With Agnew out Nixon has to go ahead and pick his new VP, you know 25th amendment and all. He asks Congressional leaders who they want and it's pretty unanimous: Jerry Ford. He's nomination sails through both the House and the Senate.
Just under two months after Agnew resigned, Jerry Ford became Vice-President of the United States.
But that Watergate scandal was looming, and 9 months after becoming Vice President, Richard Nixon goes ahead and eats some cottage cheese, and says peace out.
Nixon leaves the White House, and on August 9, 1974 Jerry, at the age of 61, is sworn in as the 38th President of the United States. He's the only man to assume the office of the presidency without ever having a vote cast for him, and he's well aware of that fact. He heads to the East Room (the same place JQA kept his alligator in a bathtub!) and tells the audience that had gathered, along with the whole country watching on TV: "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers."
Sadly, Jerry's parent's didn't live to see their son become president. But, Betty was now in the White House, along with Susan (the boys were all grown). Betty is depicted as Merida here because she was a new kind of First Lady. a rebel of sorts, and she liked to speak her mind on all kinds of hot button issues. Susan, meanwhile, would get to have her Senior Prom at the White House. She also got her dog a golden retriever, named Liberty (who famously had pups at the White House AND was even depicted on Saturday Night Live).
Jerry brought the Ford house rules to the White House with him. He was going to bring the country together after a time of scandal a la Calvin Coolidge after the disaster that was the Harding administration. Since he hadn't been elected, American's saw him as more of a caretaker than a president. But, he also got the benefit of some pretty low expectations too. It was his opportunity to show them he could be great. But a month after taking office, he ticked off all of America when he decided to grant Nixon a full, unconditional pardon for the Watergate crimes. And that was pretty much that for Jerry Ford.
First off, it looked bad. It looked like Jerry had an inside deal with Nixon (I'll make you my VP and ultimately leader of the free world and all you have to do is make yourself public enemy number 1 by pardoning me dealio). Jerry didn't, but without any friends (except Nixon, which eww gross), he couldn't convince anyone of that. Jerry had good intentions. He had been given a country with a failing economy and a military that was second-best in a time when second-best wasn't an option. But all anyone wanted to talk about was "Nixon this" and "Nixon that". He needed the country to move on, and the pardon was his way of saying "everyone just shut up already, move on, and let me be president."
It's not as if he didn't contribute, as president. He continued Nixon's efforts with foreign relations, and brokered a temporary truce in the middle east. (though unfortunately for Jerry the consequences of that deal had gas prices jumping 70%).
One of his biggest contributions was the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. It was a human rights agreement with the Soviet Union and 33 other countries. The agreement made it easier for discontented groups inside these nations to criticize their governments without fearing punishment.
Besides that, under his watch the Vietnam War ended (though American forces left, communist governments resumed power).
With the economy struggling, Jerry came up with the WIN (whip inflation now) program. Unfortunately, making buttons and bumper stickers and cheering the downfall of inflation does nothing to actually help the economy.
Jerry was clumsy (he was constantly tripping and bumping his head and being made fun of by the media for it). He was not well spoken- at least on a presidential level- and was often the butt of jokes. But, he did make time to enjoy all the things he loved while he was president. He went skiing and horseback riding. He fished and golfed (though his clumsiness came through when he hit some lady on the head with his golf ball).
And he was lucky on two separate occasions when someone attempted to assassinate him. Once the gun misfired, and once the assassin had some seriously poor aim. Interestingly enough, both would-be-assassins were woman, and both attempts came only weeks apart, both in California.
When it came time for the 1976 election, Jerry nearly lost in the PRIMARY to Ronald Reagan. But, his party decided to stay beside him.
But, the country just couldn't get past that Nixon pardon no matter what Jerry did.
Instead, a former peanut farmer/Governor of Georgia was elected to office. (Jimmy Carter is up sometime in October). Jimmy thanked Jerry for bringing together the country during scandal, and eventually the two would be BFF's a la Bill Clinton and George H.W.
Jerry retired out in California.
Where the Ford's staged an intervention for Betty who had a drinking/pill taking problem. Betty went to rehab and then opened her very own center to help people with dependencies and addiction.
In 1980, when Reagan decided to run for president he very nearly put Jerry on the ticket with him. But, Jerry wanted more of a co-presidency, and Ronny was not into that, so he went with George H.W. instead.
Jerry spent time in retirement as a pretty active part of politics. He headed back to Washington for the signing of the Brady Bill and an assault weapons ban, as he was a proponent for gun control. Clinton recognized him for his courage in pardoning Nixon, and he showed up once in his 90's to tell his republican buddies that marriage equality needed to be a thing, period. (Yes, a 90 year old white guy republican was all for marriage equality back in 2001, take that stereotypes!)
The day after Christmas in 2006, Jerry died in his home in California of heart disease. His body was brought to D.C. to lie in state, and though Betty was frail, she was there too.
He was buried at his presidential library in Grand Rapids, Michigan (I still can't believe we haven't made it to the one president's grave who is buried in Michigan!). Five years later, Betty died and was buried next to her husband. Though is legacy will probably always be the guy who got to be president without ever having a single vote cast for him (hey, Frank Underwood!), and he did nothing more memorable than pardoning Nixon, today Americans have the benefit of hindsight, and you are hard pressed to find a historian that doesn't believe pardoning Nixon was the right thing to do, and what the country needed at the time, even if it was an extremely unpopular decision at the time.
We have some fun facts on Gerald Ford (the boys especially enjoyed the fact he used to pass gas and blame it on the Secret Service.)
We added the props and his biggest presidential issues to his 1/4 of the American flag..
...and made the Ford house rules his famous quote (he lived by these rules his whole life!)
We made our birthday cards, and watched our PBS president in 60 seconds on Gerald Ford. ..
And then did our activity. Usually in August we make our predictions for the upcoming NFL season (who will win divisions/conference/Superbowl). I told you I've been phoning in activities so far this month with everything that's been going on, and today was no different. (I have some fun things planned for August though!)
Asa went ahead and made Betty Ford's blueberry banana bread from our presidential cookbook.
Among Jerry's other favorites: pot roast (we did pork roast because it was on sale).
For dessert, his favorite ice cream: butter pecan! (Which Calib refused to eat because he said "butter ice cream sounds gross, and then later when he did finally try it said it was the worst thing he's ever eaten- besides brussel sprouts.)
Our historical hashtag for Jerry: Campaigns are for suckers #WhoNeedsVotes
That's it for Gerald Ford. His part of the flag is pretty crowded, I guess I went a little big on his props.
I should be done with July birthdays, but we missed one. I plan on getting to it later this week, so I'll be back with that. We also made a beach trip yesterday, but I'll include that in a blog later too, because holy geez: presidential birthday set up + presidential birthday celebration + presidential birthday blog = Corinne's WHOLE day.
Next Up: A happy belated birthday to George W. Bush.
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