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Originally uploaded by jippyjabber.
Gerald Ford is Dead. I remember being told to run home and turn on the TV by the summer school teacher. I didn't need to go to summer school. I VOLUNTEERED to go. Why didn't someone tell me that I set myself up to be trashed by all of the either naughty or stupid kids? My sister was one of them. I thought if she had to go to summer school, I might as well go with her.
When the teacher said, go home and watch history in the making, go home and watch the president resign. I am sure, I am the only one of her students who actually did go home and watch President Nixon quit. Quit! I was afraid for our country. I didn't know a president could quit. In my panic of a pilotless country, I was introduced to Gerald Ford. What a relief!!! OK so there was a next in line. It was the firt time I cared at all about politics. Oh besides the message from the president in the Weekly Reader. I really believed in the Weekly Reader. Nothing in it prepared me for the slightest possibility that a president might be a liar and a cheater and be found out and forced to quit.
So, one bad one and he was busted and left. From now on we'd have only good honest men as presidents. Gerald Ford must be a good man if he was next in line. Oh to be that niave again. It seemed alright for a moment. Then came the pardon. At the time I thought if it wasn't so bad then why did he have to quit? I guess it was so bad. I guess Gerald Ford must be really really nice. I thought Gerald Ford had a kind of loyality that made him look bad to the very people who were demanding the president do the right thing.
It was confusing to me. But maybe Gerald Ford knew that it might not be good for America to have a president in prison. I had to believe that Gerald Ford knew things, top secret things, that helped him choose to pardon Nixon. I listened to him and found it to hard, sad, and noble. It was clear even to a little girl that he could have opted to make himself a superstar. He didn't do that. I myself was in the mist of intense peer preasure at summer school. It's brutal to be good sometimes.
The teacher had it right. I am glad now that I am older that I went home that day and turned on the TV and watched history in the making. I felt a horrible feeling in my gut for America when Nixon resigned. I went a long long time without feeling like that. 911 did it to me. How President Bush responded with the war. I wanted all of our good militarty persons after Osama. I still have a deep fear for America and worry so much about our leadership. Now, I worry about the worlds view of us. How we view ourselves, how seperated we are. How political we are and seemingly have to become. Even though Bush admitted to misleading the American public, I know he won't quit no matter what. I can't help it though, I belong to this country, I am American, and I am still waiting for that Gerald Ford kind of feeling.....
