Remembering Gerald Ford

I just finished watching Ford's funeral and I have to say that I was quite moved. I remember Ford, especially because he was from Grand Rapids Michigan. Being from Michigan myself, it was like he was "our" president. I remember shaking his hand when I was about 9 or 10 years old and even being on the national evening news for about 0.3 seconds when he came to our town to campaign. I wasn't hard to miss because I had on THE ugliest fake leather yellow jacket with these god-awful gawdy flowers on them. What WERE people thinking back then??? I can say that I was underage and had no idea what I was wearing. But the adults??? They have no excuse.

I remember when Watergate was taking place, even though I was young at the time. I remember when Nixon made his famous "I am not a crook" speech. I remember when Ford took the office and even though I didn't understand what the whole big deal was (I honestly thought the "tapes" everybody was talking about were like music tapes and couldn't understand why people were mad at Nixon for that), I did understand that it was a big deal in history. Maybe that is where I started to form my political thinkings, who knows. But I do believe that Gerald Ford was a good man and not because he was leader of our country, because Lord knows many of our "leaders" are not good men. But because he had his four children there remembering him and tearing up for their loss. Because he stayed with his wife through adversity and she stood next to him through everything. I hope one day, Jack will feel the same way about his parents as Ford's children obviously feel about their parents. THAT is a sign of a good man or woman.