How much do you know about President Gerald Ford?

I didn't know much until I did a little research to understand a man who was the president while I was a little girl. How else do we teach our children about history if we don't know a little ourselves.

I loved learning that he always had a newspaper in his arm. That he lived in his home in VA as the President until President Nixon had completely moved out of the White House. I loved hearing his daughter talk with Tom Brokaw about her Dad. I respect the office and responsibility of someone taking on this job in our country. It is a hard job. I may not always agree with what they do, but I will stand that I admire one who will take on such a job.

editorial in the Record-Review - I thought was worth copying and pasting in my blog.

"He was called an "accidental president” and forever will be remembered as the butt of "Saturday Night Live” skits. A klutzy character continually beaning spectators with golf balls and tumbling out of Air Force One.

But to middle-age and older Americans President Gerald R. Ford, the 13-term Michigan congressman who succeeded the disgraced Richard Nixon, was a decent man who did his best to heal the nation's Watergate wounds.

Ford, who died Tuesday at the age of 93, was among the last — if not the last — of a fading breed of selfless public officials who put the people and the country ahead of party, ideology and personal enrichment.

He was elevated to the vice presidency by Nixon (replacing the sleazy, corrupt Spiro Agnew) in a cynical attempt to ensure that the impeachment-minded Congress wouldn't remove Nixon from office. After all, Nixon loyalists thought, the nation would never want the bland Jerry Ford in the White House.

How wrong they were.

At long last, Nixon, under threat of removal by the Senate, resigned and it was up to the congressman from Michigan to pull the scandal-torn country together.

The images of the day remain crystal clear. Nixon standing in front of his embarrassed, shell-shocked family mumbling about his mother in a good-bye statement to his staff. Nixon waving from a soon-to-depart Marine helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House. And Gerald and Betty Ford seeing them off, smiling but uncertain about what was awaiting them and the nation.

It was a tenuous time for the country, thankful to be rid of the likes of Nixon and Agnew but uncomfortable with the little-known Michigan politician.

Ford went on to seal his partial-term fate by pardoning Nixon and declaring during a debate with Jimmy Carter that Eastern Europe was not dominated by the Soviet Union. And who can forget those silly Whip Inflation Now (WIN) buttons he tried to get the country to wear to stabilize the economy?

But looking back, Ford was the right man at the right time.

He did indeed help end the long national nightmare, as he called it, and he represented something that we don't see much of anymore at all levels of government — humility and honesty.

The adopted son of a Grand Rapids paint salesman who became an Eagle Scout and the 38th president of the United States leaves behind an appreciative nation. One that remembers a modest, decent leader, hoping against hope that another will come along soon."

Thirty-Eighth President
1974-1977

Born: July 14, 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska

Died: December 26, 2006 in Rancho Mirage, California