An Ordinary Man

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

In my haste and excitement about the sweep of presidential history The Man From Monticello, I neglected to mention An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford by Richard Norton Smith (April 11, 2023). My omission is understandable. President Ford was an accidental U.S. President. He did not call attention to himself while in the Oval Office. Ford stood out for his Middle Western decency. He pardoned former President Richard M. Nixon which may account in part for Ford’s fade from historic view.

Tonight, I want to correct the record. President Ford was part of our book club journey thus far. We all learned about character and human dignity in an ordinary man as we viewed the life of a man from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Did you know Ford was a distinguished university football player? That he graduated from Yale Law School? That he lived a decent life when it came to blackness?

The following links revisit my previous essays about this underappreciated President of our country. When President Ford passed on December 26, 2006 in Rancho Mirage, California, we were vacationing with the kids in Palm Springs. We were about twelve (12) miles away on the desert valley floor and I felt in the moment loss of a decent man, a good man, an ordinary man.

An Ordinary Book About An Ordinary Man (June 22, 2024)

The Knock Off Consequences of Covid (August 23, 2024)

President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. (1913 - 2006)