Secret (and not so secret) Lives of the Presidents
For the past few days I've been in Victoria, BC attending a work-related conference. I found a great used book store (called Russell Books) and walked out with a bag full of inexpensive presidential bios that I'll read eventually. One of my finds was a little gem entitled Secret Lives of the US Presidents by Cormac O'Brien. The book is full of obscure and sometimes humourous facts about every president. Some samples include:
*George Washington indulged in such luxuries as leopard skin robes for all of his horses.
*Thomas Jefferson liked to greet his ambassadors in his pyjamas.
*Jefferson, John Adams and James Monroe all died on the 4th of July.
*John Quincy Adams loved to go skinny-dipping in the Potomac River.
*Martin Van Buren wrote a long dry autobiography that never once mentions his wife.
*James K. Polk was the first (and probably only) president to wear a mullet.
*Queen Victoria said that she thought that Millard Fillmore was the handsomest man she'd ever seen.
*Franklin Pierce was arrested for dangerous driving. He struck an old woman with his carriage and was arrested, but released when the police discovered his identity.
*Rutherford Hayes banished alcohol from the white house and spent every night singing gospel hymns.
*Grover Cleveland became the guardian of eleven year old Frances Folsom, and married her ten years later.
*Warren Harding once bet (and lost) a set of white house china in a poker game.
*On Calvin Coolidge's last day as president, he held up the his successor's inauguration because he lost one of his galoshes. He had eight secret service men look for it.
*John F. Kennedy was suffering from chlamydia while the Bay of Pigs was going on.
*Gerald Ford is the only president to have worked as a model. He was once on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.
*Jimmy Carter is the only president to have reported seeing a UFO.
*George W. Bush almost died from choking on a pretzel, while watching a football game at the white house.
I think I'm gonna like this book!