“I cannot tell a lie. I cut down the cherry tree,” is a lie. That anecdote was fictionalized by Mason Locke Weems, who wrote a best-selling biography of Washington shortly after the former president’s death. It makes for a good story, though, and I suppose it could be true, especially given Washington’s propensity for being forthright and honorable and all those good things we expect from the father of our country. I’m sure that’s what Mr. Weems had in mind as he got a little carried away with memorializing the great man. I know it’s a lie, though, because I saw it disputed on Wikipedia and I also just finished Ron Chernow’s huge Washington biography. I even know that he had only one tooth in his mouth for his inauguration and that he spoke very little because he feared spitting out his ivory—not wood—dentures. I suspect he didn’t laugh very much for the same reason. And if dentures keep a president from saying too many stupid things, perhaps we should wish only one tooth for them all.
I realize I’m an anomaly, but as we’re all weird in some ways, I’ll confess my oddity. I’m a presidential trivia fan. This year, I committed to reading a biography of every American president, but as it’s February already and I’ve only finished one book, I think that resolution will have to span a few years if not a decade. I seriously doubt that I’ll find a biography of Chester Arthur or Millard Fillmore anyway, but you never know. They might be more inspiring than I suspect.
My family enables my passion, or peculiarity, by picking up interesting presidential-themed books as they crop up. Some people collect salt and pepper shakers. I collect presidents.
One of my favorites is Dead Presidents, a book I became so engrossed in that I just about missed my flight from Reagan International once. It turns out I was also in the wrong terminal which further complicated the matter. Take my word for it. The book is a whole lot more intriguing than its title. Who wouldn’t want to know that Grant’s Tomb in NYC is the second largest mausoleum in the Western Hemisphere and is the centerpiece for one of the most repeated corny presidential jokes ever–“Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” I really don’t want to know how many people might struggle with that one.
Speaking of not judging a book by its cover, Mary Todd’s family should have taken that tack instead of deeming Abraham Lincoln unworthy of her. They were certain that the gangly, awkward, tongue-tied suitor would never amount to anything. His political prospects were dim and his income was even more limited. She married him though, and the slow-to-launch politician made a pretty good name for himself. He didn’t struggle at all for words with the Gettysburg Address, but probably should have taken less interest in the theater.
Words came easy for Franklin Roosevelt, too. Without access to a speechwriter on Pearl Harbor day, he dictated verbatim in one sitting his 6-minute declaration of war against Japan. His first draft, though, read “Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date that will live in world history…” I’m nodding off already. Replace “world history” with “infamy,” though, and we’re ready to rumble. Words.
I’ve always felt sorry for mathematicians who can’t make a sentence. Brilliance must be boring and nobody is impressed.
Well, actually they were probably pretty impressed with Woodrow Wilson’s Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, making him the most well-educated president so far, but it wasn’t a math degree, so I rest my case. Brilliance doesn’t have to revolve around science and math. That’s what I keep telling myself.
So this month hosts Presidents Day, a holiday set aside because both Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays occur in February. Trivia aficionado that I am, I know that Washington was actually born on February 11, not the 22nd, because the Julian calendar was in place then. But it’s still in February so no harm done.
George Washington liked the ladies, but he seems to have kept it all within bounds, as you would expect a father figure to do. Warren Harding, though, just couldn’t say no. Of his most infamous affairs was a 15-year relationship that the Republican party swept under the rug by sending the consort and her husband off on an incredibly slow boat to Japan during Harding’s election year. Literally. They made sure she had plenty of spending money, though.
Grover Cleveland had a child out of wedlock, James Garfield confessed to multiple dalliances, and we all remember the Clinton years. JFK probably topped them all but died a martyr so nobody much goes there.
Including Kennedy, eight presidents have died in office. Four were assassinated and four died of natural causes. Some suspected that Zachary Taylor had been poisoned instead of suffering gastroenteritis from eating cherries that were too cold—who knew?—but a recent exhumation proved otherwise. The only president to survive an assassination attempt by a woman was Gerald Ford. In fact, two women tried to kill him on two different occasions. I remember him, and don’t know why he would have made women angry, but he ticked off at least two.
JFK, LBJ, FDR, W. Some presidential names are just more fun abbreviated. And until yesterday, I didn’t know that the S in Harry S Truman stands for nothing. It’s just S.
Enough already. You really don’t need to know that FDR spoke German fluently, so he probably understood a lot more WWII rhetoric than he would have liked, or that the commander of the Allied forces in that same war, Dwight Eisenhower, was an accomplished chef who specialized in vegetable soup. And yet, that’s what makes trivia so spellbinding. You really do want to know that.
They’re just people. Just like us. Good and bad, honest and not so much, wordy and not so wordy (I’m thinking Calvin Coolidge). Most have shown up when we needed them, though, and have done the right thing more often than not. Winston Churchill gets credit for a quote that he might or might not have said, “Americans will ultimately do the right thing, but only after trying everything else.” So it has been with many of our presidents. They ultimately seem to do the right thing which is at least a bit comforting. They haven’t wrecked it yet.
Winston Churchill also concluded that “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms.” That’s true. Woodrow Wilson wanted to make the world safe for democracy…
Somebody, please stop me.
