a humble tribute to the late GREAT President Gerald Ford
THANK YOU PRESIDENT FORD !!!!!!!!!
Hey, look, what else can I say?????? If you look at my blog, you'll see an early attempt at my endeavor to show the great respect that I have for this profoundly great American. I had definitely hoped that I would have had many more months to write my small and humble tribute to this great person, a tribute which I tried to begin several months ago when I had heard of an illness which at the time seemed to be terminal. At that time I was glad that I was given more time--indeed what at that time seemed to be a large amount of time but which perhaps in retrospect was too short a time-- to compose my own personal tribute to this great American. Now that time has come to an end, at least as far as he in his earthly life can appreciate.
If the tears that I am shedding as I try to type this tribute do not interfere with my continued attempt to type it, I can and will only try to add to the many and deserving tributes and memorials that I hear on the TV and radio in the background at this hour my own small and humble THANK YOU for the life and service which so greatly benefitted my life and the lives of all Americans and indeed all people who are alive today on this date, December 26 2006, the day of his passing. For those who do not know or understand what happened during his brief and unique Presidency, I can only refer you to his own words, the very first words we Americans heard him utter as our 38th President--"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." How true those words turned out to be; how few politicians in the United States have spoken words such as those and THEN turned out to have made his actions square with those words he had so spoken. It is difficult to look at the good that this nation known in human history as the United States of America has performed or has had the capacity to perform since that fateful date in early August of 1974 without emphatically placing the person of Gerald Rudolph Ford at the center of that capability and performance. In the great tradition of the Christian religion that he, and I, and so many of his fellow countrymen profess, "May God have mercy on his soul, and grant him eternal peace."
What else can I say????? Perhaps the passage of time will show to all how great a leader this man was. Indeed, the simplistic and childish criticism that he received during his Presidency now seems to be comical, the ultimate and at-long-last-actor-acknowledged comic retort to the barbs he suffered during his administration. After learning of his death, ironically on a sports-oriented cable-TV network at a local restaurant, I drove home holding back my tears and only honking my car's horn when it looked to me that no other cars were around. No *FM* radio station on my buttons had any news of his passing; when switching to _AM_ the first and best coverage of this sad news was found ironically on a sports-oriented station, one which intersperced his athletic career and interests with his life as a statesman and politician. How appropriate that the first real coverage of Ford's death that I heard combined his negotiations over nuclear weapons numbers in Vladivostok with the then-Soviet leadership alongside his own simultaneous interest in his college alma mater's great Big Ten football rivalry. How many Americans could waste their time on college football rivalries thanks to the work that President Ford did will probably never be appreciated.
Maybe someday I will finish my own personal tribute to this great guy. Knowing my procrastination, that may not be for some time. Still, at any rate, it's kept me up for two hours in the middle of the night. How many Americans and people of other countries have been able to sleep in the middle of their own personal nights is practically impossible to calculate,and maybe is the ultimate tribute to the person who held the 38th Presidency of the United States of America. One more time,
THANK YOU PRESIDENT FORD !!!!!!
Hey, look, what else can I say?????? If you look at my blog, you'll see an early attempt at my endeavor to show the great respect that I have for this profoundly great American. I had definitely hoped that I would have had many more months to write my small and humble tribute to this great person, a tribute which I tried to begin several months ago when I had heard of an illness which at the time seemed to be terminal. At that time I was glad that I was given more time--indeed what at that time seemed to be a large amount of time but which perhaps in retrospect was too short a time-- to compose my own personal tribute to this great American. Now that time has come to an end, at least as far as he in his earthly life can appreciate.
If the tears that I am shedding as I try to type this tribute do not interfere with my continued attempt to type it, I can and will only try to add to the many and deserving tributes and memorials that I hear on the TV and radio in the background at this hour my own small and humble THANK YOU for the life and service which so greatly benefitted my life and the lives of all Americans and indeed all people who are alive today on this date, December 26 2006, the day of his passing. For those who do not know or understand what happened during his brief and unique Presidency, I can only refer you to his own words, the very first words we Americans heard him utter as our 38th President--"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." How true those words turned out to be; how few politicians in the United States have spoken words such as those and THEN turned out to have made his actions square with those words he had so spoken. It is difficult to look at the good that this nation known in human history as the United States of America has performed or has had the capacity to perform since that fateful date in early August of 1974 without emphatically placing the person of Gerald Rudolph Ford at the center of that capability and performance. In the great tradition of the Christian religion that he, and I, and so many of his fellow countrymen profess, "May God have mercy on his soul, and grant him eternal peace."
What else can I say????? Perhaps the passage of time will show to all how great a leader this man was. Indeed, the simplistic and childish criticism that he received during his Presidency now seems to be comical, the ultimate and at-long-last-actor-acknowledged comic retort to the barbs he suffered during his administration. After learning of his death, ironically on a sports-oriented cable-TV network at a local restaurant, I drove home holding back my tears and only honking my car's horn when it looked to me that no other cars were around. No *FM* radio station on my buttons had any news of his passing; when switching to _AM_ the first and best coverage of this sad news was found ironically on a sports-oriented station, one which intersperced his athletic career and interests with his life as a statesman and politician. How appropriate that the first real coverage of Ford's death that I heard combined his negotiations over nuclear weapons numbers in Vladivostok with the then-Soviet leadership alongside his own simultaneous interest in his college alma mater's great Big Ten football rivalry. How many Americans could waste their time on college football rivalries thanks to the work that President Ford did will probably never be appreciated.
Maybe someday I will finish my own personal tribute to this great guy. Knowing my procrastination, that may not be for some time. Still, at any rate, it's kept me up for two hours in the middle of the night. How many Americans and people of other countries have been able to sleep in the middle of their own personal nights is practically impossible to calculate,and maybe is the ultimate tribute to the person who held the 38th Presidency of the United States of America. One more time,
THANK YOU PRESIDENT FORD !!!!!!
posted by Greg Yoest at 11:41 PM
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