Happy Presidents' Day

I'm glad to be back in the stream of life after a very long drought while my mother was in hospice care. Losing her on December 9, 2009 was no doubt the hardest of life's challenges and will continue to hurt for some time to come. My lifeline has been cut, my biggest champion gone, my softest falling place turned to concrete. I know I am supposed to remember the good times and be grateful for the many years of love I had from her, but such platitudes do not mitigate the inexplicable depth of this loss. Everyone in favor of mothers living forever, raise your hand!

Meanwhile, I am celebrating my return to blogging with a fun tribute to Presidents' Day: a brief list of Presidential trivia. Caution: this sampling could turn into a full-fledged list...

1. the only bachelor president: James Buchanan
2. the last president born in England: William Henry Harrison
3. the first president born in the USA: Martin Van Buren (even though he was of Dutch heritage and spoke Dutch with his wife at home)
4. the first president not from Virginia or Massachusetts: Andrew Jackson (born in South Carolina)
5. the only Quaker president: Richard Nixon
6. the oldest elected president: Ronald Reagan (aged 69)
7. the youngest elected president: John F. Kennedy (43)
8. the shortest term in office: William Henry Harrison (died from pneumonia about a month after his inauguration)
9. the longest term in office: Franklin D. Roosevelt (the only president to have served four terms)
10. the only divorced president: Ronald Reagan
11. the longest inauguration speech: William Henry Harrison (he spoke for 1 hour and 45 minutes)
12. the only elected president to serve nonsequential terms: Grover Cleveland
13. the president with the most children: John Tyler (15)
14. the first president to die in office: William Henry Harrison (from pneumonia that developed from the cold he contracted after that long inaugural speech in the freezing rain without coat or hat)

Hail to the chief!

Cindy
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"Expect the Unexpected"
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