Some unelected officials including the President
Wanted to know where the economy went
Inflation's up, there's nothing we can afford
Pardon me, sir, but aren't you Mr. Ford?
That was my 12th grade attempt at a New York Magazine competition, with the last line of the poem being the required piece. I didn't actually send it in, since I knew it wasn't any good, but it circulated in Mr. Olyha's physics class and a couple of other people added verses.
The things that got my attention about Gerald Ford back in the day were: 1) his odd accession to office, 2) the Nixon pardon, and 3) our economoic woes. Stagflation was arguably not his fault, but those WIN ("Whip Inflation Now") buttons were memorably stupid. There were also the reports of his clumsiness, which led to all of those Chevy Chase pratfalls on Saturday Night Live. But I think many of us would look silly if we had reporters chronicling every time we tripped over a shadow. The public eye is not kind to ordinary foibles.
Ford left the public eye pretty effectively once he left office. I gather his retirement was a pretty dignified one, with the exception of playing golf. (Nothing that involves wearing plaid pants can be called dignified.) His early speech in office had him proclaim he was "a Ford, not a Lincoln" and he seemed to live up to that. Ninety-three is a more than respectable old age.
The Ford family isn't going the full horse-drawn caisson route that the Reagans chose. But there will still be the lying-in-state in the Rotunda and a motorcade to the National Cathedral for the ceremony itself on Tuesday. The thing most people outside Washington don't know is that Presidential funerals mean the government shuts down. The official declaration came out around noon today. My company, alas, will not close, so I will have another day to spend on packing up my office. That mundane chore seems appropriate on a day honoring a simple man.
Copyright 2006 Miriam H. Nadel