Aliens in This World

I was very young when Gerald Ford took office. But I remember him well. He was the first thing I remember seeing on the national news that wasn’t an astronaut, and he wasn’t someone worrying like the old president. He was solid, trustworthy, normal, and obviously nice. Everybody mocked him, but he didn’t seem to care; he just went on doing his job and being nice. And when the 1976 elections came around, my six-year-old self was incredulous that anyone could possibly want to vote for Jimmy Carter.

I still remember the first time I opened an Allan Drury novel and met Harley Hudson, the Senator from Michigan who became president almost by accident, and proved tougher than anybody expected. I now know that Michigan was a coincidence, and that Hudson was originally a fictionalized Harry Truman. But back then, I just felt astonishment, and then gratitude. Somebody else out there appreciated President Ford.

I’ve learned a few things over the years about Ford’s presidency that went over my head when I was a kid. I know why some on both sides opposed the pardon. But I think Ford was right. Watergate had dragged on too long, and the country needed to make an end of it, so it could get back to work and heal its wounds. None of his critics can say what their plans would have done. What he did, worked.

When I heard this morning that Gerald Ford had passed away, I’m not ashamed to tell you that I cried. He was a good president and a good man. Maybe he could have done better; maybe he could have started the Reagan Revolution earlier, or fought Roe vs. Wade, or done a zillion other things. Heck, he could have gone to Ohio State instead.

But what he did, worked. He muddled through, and so did America.

May God be good to him.