I started out, bright and early, in Grand Rapids with a trip to the Presidential Museum of one Leslie Lynch King. Never heard of him? He's better known as Gerald Ford, the only president never to have been elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. His mother left his biological father just a couple of weeks after he was born and married his stepfather when he was two. Gerald didn't learn the truth about his origins until he was 17.
A talented athlete, he got his education first at the University of Michigan and then at Yale. He served in the Pacific during the war and returned to Grand Rapids a hero. More importantly, the war had changed his view of foreign policy; he had gone from an isolationist to an internationalist. In the 1948 Congressional election, he ousted an incumbent Republican and went on hold the seat from 1949 till he became vice president.
The museum itself was quite good I thought. It gives you a clear and concise story of the man and his times, with the whole sordid Watergate story as a bitter contrast to Ford's own personal integrity. Lots and lots of interesting near history there for yanks and wannabes like yours truly to peruse.
His wife Betty also became famous. Though I looked for it, I could not find a single mention of her alcoholism and the subsequent founding of the Betty Ford Clinic, but her fight with breast cancer is given much space. They are both buried in the museum grounds.
All pics here.
Ze prezidential muzeum.
Bronze statue of Ford.
Replica of the Oval office as it looked during Ford's presidency.
Real stuff that was used during the Watergate break-in.
The actual ladder from the US Embassy in Saigon, whence the helicopter took off in April '75. I'm sure y'all are familiar with the pic. Maybe you're not so familiar with Ford's hard labor on behalf of the local allies of the US; he was instrumental in giving tens upon tens of thousands of 'em asylum in the US.
My answer: I sure as hell hope so!
The gravesite.
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