GERALD FORD

GERALD FORD

Gerald Ford was the Vice-President of the United States under Richard Nixon and subseqently, the President of the United States. He is the only person to hold those offices that never was elected to either. He took over the Vice-Presidency when Spiro Agnew was forced to resign because of a tax evasion charge and took over the Presidency when Nixon was forced to resign because of the Watergate scandal. He ran for President, with Bob Dole as his running-mate, in 1976 but was defeated by Jimmy Carter. I voted for Ford.

I suppose most everyone knows Ford was an All-American Center on a University of Michigan football team that went undefeated for two years in a row. He joined the Navy when the U.S. entered into World War II and served in the Pacific. He was elected to the House of Representatives in his first attempt at public office after the war.

Did you know that Leslie Lynch King, Jr. was his name at birth? He was named after his biological father. His parents were divorced before he was one year old. When his mother remarried, they changed his name to that of his step-father. Its a good thing. I never would have voted for a guy named Leslie.

He played golf as poorly as I do. Gerald Ford was a good man. Yesterday we lost a good man.