By Merrie Spaeth, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-555764.mp3
Dallas, TX –
Of course, funerals and death are sad topics, but I'm surprised watching all the discussions and dissection of President Gerald Ford's presidency, and years of public service, that people seem determined to forget that he was very funny.
To many people, the image created by Chevy Chase on the old Saturday Night Live is what we remember. In 1975, in Salzburg, Austria, President Ford stumbled getting off Air Force One. Saturday Night Live made that stumble into Ford's image.
That perpetuated the myth that he was clumsy and not too smart. Lyndon Johnson said that Ford couldn't "walk and chew gum at the same time." It was a puzzle that people, including the press, simply accepted these inaccuracies. Ford was a graduate of Yale Law School, one of the toughest schools to get into.
We've heard people talking about all these things for the past week, and some commentators and former White House staffers have noted that Ford just let these insults roll off his back. What they haven't pointed out is how effectively he used humor.
We give President Reagan credit as someone who knew how to use humor, and it's generally agreed that Presidents Carter and Nixon were clueless in the humor department. LBJ had his own brand of humor, more like ridicule.
Someone tried to give President Ford a phone shaped like a lamp, and he declined the gift saying, "My image has enough problems without me saying 'Excuse me while I answer my lamp.'"
Although President Ford may be the best athlete ever to occupy the Oval Office, he poked fun at himself, noting that his wife, Betty, said he was a terrible dancer, and that he played center in football because it was the one position where he didn't have to move his feet. When asked about his view of the Presidency, Ford loved to quote football great Chris Schenkel who had played quarterback at Michigan when Ford played Center, and said "Schenkel had the best view of my abilities."
Again, while we consider Reagan the master of timing and the ability to tell a story various ways, Ford was just as good. He had one story he could tell in short, medium or long version. He would talk about the year he started as Center on Michigan's team, and they lost seven of their eight games. In the short version, he summarized it just like that. "We lost seven of eight games." In the long version, he'd go game by game. "And then we played Ohio State. We lost." But the punch line was always the same. He'd pause and say, "But what really hurt was that was the year they named me Most Valuable Player." It always got a laugh.
Known as a devoted, if sometimes wild, golfer, Ford had a number of lines about golf. He told a story, almost certainly apocryphal, that he ran into Ben Hogan, Jack Nicholas and Byron Nelson at a fancy golf club on the first tee. He would say: "I walked up to them, expecting to be asked to join them. They said, 'We need a 4th player who can keep up.' So I said, 'Well, here I am!' And they said, 'Good, you can help us look.'"
Another line Ford loved, again with a pause and shake of the head first, was to say, "But what really hurt was when Arnold Palmer asked me to wear his pants under an assumed name."
Ford even wrote a book about humor, Humor and the Presidency, with an introduction by famed lawyer Edward Bennett Williams. It's both a terrific look at how presidents use humor and a thoughtful examination of why humor is important as a leadership tool. In the introduction, Ford wrote that there are "two ways to experience humor. As the perpetrator (meaning the writers or cartoonists) or as a victim, and as such a victim, I take a back seat to no one where humor is concerned." Actually, President Ford took a back seat to no one in many areas, including humor. Thanks and good by, Mr. President.
Merrie Spaeth formerly worked in the Reagan administration and is now a communications consultant based in Dallas.
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