Rest in peace, Mr. President

Tuesday is a National Day of Mourning in honor of our thirty-eighth United States President, Gerald R. Ford. President Ford is the first President I remember being on TV when I was a kid. Nixon was in office when I was born, but I remember Ford's Presidential Addresses cutting into my cherished TV time occasionally, that's how I remember him. LOL Black and white, fuzzy and with a slight ghost to his righ. LOL

We found out late today that our office is closing for the day Tueseday in honor of this American icon so here is my little tribute to the man of the hour.

Here are some interesting facts about President Ford:
He was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., after his biological father and later renamed after his adoptive father, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Sr.
Except in formal signature, he signed his name Jerry Ford.
Gerald Ford had two attempts on his life in California during the month of September, 1975. Both attempts were by women.
Ford was once a male model.
He became Vice President and President without being elected to either office.
Ford had another swimming pool dug after he became president because Richard Nixon had had it filled in.
Ford was on the University of Michigan football team from 1931 to 1934. He was offered tryouts by both the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears.
In 1977 he had a hole-in-one at the Memphis Classic.
He was right-handed, but he wrote with his left hand.
Ford was the only president to serve without being chosen in the national election.
When Ford proposed to to his wife, he was wearing one brown & one black shoe.
Ford was the first President to have been an Eagle Scout.
Ford's daughter Susan held her senior prom at the White House.
Ford was the head boxing coach and assistant football coach at Yale University.
Ford was one of the members of the Warren Commission appointed to study the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

When Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office on August 9, 1974, he declared, "I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances.... This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts."

It was indeed an unprecedented time. He had been the first Vice President chosen under the terms of the Twenty-fifth Amendment and, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, was succeeding the first President ever to resign.

Ford was confronted with almost insuperable tasks. There were the challenges of mastering inflation, reviving a depressed economy, solving chronic energy shortages, and trying to ensure world peace.

The President acted to curb the trend toward Government intervention and spending as a means of solving the problems of American society and the economy. In the long run, he believed, this shift would bring a better life for all Americans.

Ford's reputation for integrity and openness had made him popular during his 25 years in Congress. From 1965 to 1973, he was House Minority Leader. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1913, he grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He starred on the University of Michigan football team, then went to Yale, where he served as assistant coach while earning his law degree. During World War II he attained the rank of lieutenant commander in the Navy. After the war he returned to Grand Rapids, where he began the practice of law, and entered Republican politics. A few weeks before his election to Congress in 1948, he married Elizabeth Bloomer. They have four children: Michael, John, Steven, and Susan.

As President, Ford tried to calm earlier controversies by granting former President Nixon a full pardon. His nominee for Vice President, former Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, was the second person to fill that office by appointment. Gradually, Ford selected a cabinet of his own.

Ford established his policies during his first year in office, despite opposition from a heavily Democratic Congress. His first goal was to curb inflation. Then, when recession became the Nation's most serious domestic problem, he shifted to measures aimed at stimulating the economy. But, still fearing inflation, Ford vetoed a number of non-military appropriations bills that would have further increased the already heavy budgetary deficit. During his first 14 months as President he vetoed 39 measures. His vetoes were usually sustained.

Ford continued as he had in his Congressional days to view himself as "a moderate in domestic affairs, a conservative in fiscal affairs, and a dyed-in-the-wool internationalist in foreign affairs." A major goal was to help business operate more freely by reducing taxes upon it and easing the controls exercised by regulatory agencies. "We...declared our independence 200 years ago, and we are not about to lose it now to paper shufflers and computers," he said.

In foreign affairs Ford acted vigorously to maintain U. S. power and prestige after the collapse of Cambodia and South Viet Nam. Preventing a new war in the Middle East remained a major objective; by providing aid to both Israel and Egypt, the Ford Administration helped persuade the two countries to accept an interim truce agreement. Detente with the Soviet Union continued. President Ford and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev set new limitations upon nuclear weapons.

President Ford won the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 1976, but lost the election to his Democratic opponent, former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia.

On Inauguration Day, President Carter began his speech: "For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land." A grateful people concurred.