Category: History

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A Teacher (2)

A few years ago, another former teacher of mine, Mort Castle — also a longtime friend of G.E. Smith — helped G.E. pull together the hundreds of poems he had written since he was a boy in central Illinois and select some to be self-published in what turned out to be a pretty hefty volume called “Long Trails from Pleasant Hill.”

Longtrails
At various times, G.E. talked about his youthful ambition to be a writer. Most of the time he was dismissive of his own efforts, though occasionally he would talk about the factors that led him in other directions. For instance, that other writers had already said what he wanted to say, except better (published writers are the ones who realize this and keep going anyway). More significantly: His teaching absorbed so much of his time, intellectual energy and creative attention he didn’t really have the resources to follow his writing seriously. That was not an excuse: He poured all of himself into his classes and students, to the point where the demands he placed on himself brought him to and beyond the point of exhaustion. As Mort remembered in his little introduction to “Long Trails”:

“In 1968, I was Smith’s student teacher. I saw him in action, ‘grading papers,’ and it was not a quick-scrawl ‘Nice figure of speech’ here and ‘comma splice’ there. Not infrequently, a student who handed in a two-page paper received four pages of comment, comment not limited to correcting apostrophe goofs and refining expression, but personal commentary, a Smithian response to what was said and how it was said.”

Still, G.E. had the 800 or so poems, maybe in a picturesque heap that he thought of as organization, probably piled in the post-World War II semi-finished concrete-shell basement of his co-op apartment unit at 134 Dogwood in Park Forest. They probably would have stayed that way except for Mort and a change in G.E.’s own thinking about what his writing represented. “After I left college, I had no interest in publishing my poetry,” he wrote in his book’s preface. “It wasn’t until I began to think, as a genealogist, about how anything written by ancient relatives — even in signature — was (or could have been) so extraordinarily precious that I decided to consider publishing. I realized that I, too, someday, would likely be a long-ago ancient relative to someone who was pursuing my family history.”

So he and Mort brought out the book. I’d like to say that when it arrived here in Berkeley a few years back, I dove into it. But I didn’t. G.E. wrote a long inscription that thanked me, for among other things tracking down a copy of an obscure futurist novel that he had read while sailing from Europe to the Pacific as a Navy Seabee during World War II. I flipped through the book and stopped at a few of the poems. I probably found the project of reading more than a little overwhelming; and I’m sure I also had a tinge of envy and regret that I was holding yet another book by someone I knew while I myself had produced — what, exactly? (If I had ever said anything like that to G.E., he would have had something reassuring to say, then maybe started a conversation about why exactly I thought writing a book was important. Mort would have just said to sit down and start writing if I wanted to publish a book.)

G.E.’s funeral is tomorrow, down in the town where he went to and first taught in high school, Lexington. Afterward, I imagine there will be a long, long procession out to the tiny cemetery in his real hometown, Pleasant Hill, about three miles away. It will be by far the biggest event that would-be city, which started withering when the railroads bypassed it in the 1850s, has ever seen. G.E. and his grandfather and probably many others to whom he unearthed family ties have been cemetery caretakers there; we visited the spot together a couple of times a good 30 years ago; I think I was aware even then, when he was younger than I am now, that this was where G.E. hoped to come back to; not a patch of dirt in a swath of farm and prairie, but a place where his people were.

Feeling sad about the prospect of missing G.E.’s funeral, I picked up his book of poems. I thought, there’s got to be something in there where he talks about his own passing. I turned to the back of the book, to the section whimsically titled “Fear, Aging and Death.” And found this, dated 1990:

Grave Notes from the Underground

When I am dead,
who will enter this quiet sanctuary
and, speaking softly,
(Don’t shout!
I’m not deaf, you know.)
tell me the news I want to know?

Did the Cardinals win last night–
and who was the winning pitcher?

Did the bluebirds sing this spring
on the trail along Bluebird Lane?

Has the Big One ever struck
San Andreas or New Madrid faults?
(And am I safe in Pleasant Hill?)

Have politicos on Capitol Hill
yet understood the limits …
… and limitations … of capitalism?

Do my friends I loved so much
… just once in a while, perhaps …
call or visit each other?

From the knoll and the gnarl of Old Flat-top,
does anyone ever watch, as I once did,
the sunsets west of the sanctuary?
Or the April sunrise on the trail
as it enters Canary Clearing?

Does a cool breeze still stir the air
under the sinuous branches of Old Flat-top?

Do Browns and Boggs still gather
for reunions in July?
(Or do they go their separate ways,
ignorant of the roots that nourished them?)

Is warmth still there at one-three-four
on Dogwood Drive?
Is someone nurturing those
in need of nurturing?

Who came to say goodbye
as I lay freshly dead?

I know, I know.
I can’t reply.
Nothing has really changed.
I rarely had a chance,
when lifeblood-flowed and tongue was ripe,
to sneak a word in edge-wise.

Hey, take it easy there.
Your clomp’s so hard it’s apt to wake the dead.

More on G.E. Smith
Happy 80.5, G.E.
A Teacher
In Which We Gather by the River

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Rain, Rain

Heard on the street on my walk to work as clouds rolled in from the west and swallowed up our brief morning sunshine: “Rain, rain, g–d–n m—–f—–‘ rain.” Except my fellow stroller didn’t use the dashes.

Although I’m coming perilously close to a weather whine, our March rain has mounted into wetness of historic magnitude: We’ve had 23 days of measurable rain this month. If it rains today or tomorrow — and that’s almost certain — that will set a new record for most rainy days here in March. As my friend Pete pointed out the other day, forecasters say some large-scale global weather patterns have kept it wet here for weeks (and will for at least the next week, it looks like).

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Rambunctious, Rumbustious, Rumbustical

One spends a semi-absurd amount to subscribe to a resource like the Oxford English Dictionary — more precisely, subscribes to the OED, because there is no resource like it — because one wants answers, if not certitude. For instance, when the word “rambunctious” happens into your mind. Wait a minute. Where did it come from? Surely it’s an invented word from Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll.

The OED produces a fine definition: “Of a person: … exuberant; boisterous, unruly; flamboyant; of an animal: wild, high-spirited.” The earliest citation it offers is from 1830, from a publication called the Boston Transcript: “If they are ‘rumbunctious’ at the prospect, they will be ‘riprorious’ when they get a taste, for a ‘copious acquaintance’ with Vinegar.”

But as to how the word came to be, only this: “Origin unknown.” A pointer is offered to another entry, rumbustious (“boisterous, turbulent, unruly, uproarious”; a related form is rumbustical; the words are probably alterations of robustious). Robustious in turn is merely a combination of “robust” with the adjective ending “-ious” (robust is from the Latin word robur, for strength).

So there: No Lear or Carroll or any other sole practitioner shows up in the story.

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The Conscientious Objector

Blackfive, one of the military blogs I follow to try to understand that perspective on the war in Iraq, mentions today the passing of Desmond Doss, 87, who won theMedal of Honor for his World War II service in the Pacific. What was unique about Desmond Doss and his recognition for bravery: He was a noncombatant, having enlisted in the Army as what he called a “conscientious cooperator” because of his pacifist beliefs. He served as a medic.

Before Doss ever saw a battlefield, he had to overcome the hostility of his officers and fellow recruits. He was a Seventh-Day Adventist, and refused to train on Saturdays. He declined to carry weapons. He was a vegetarian. Accounts of his service note that he was ridiculed and harassed by other soldiers; the brass, meantime, tried to throw him out of the Army as unfit for service, a move he resisted.

Eventually, Doss’s unit shipped out to the Pacific and wound up fighting on Guam, in the Philippines, and finally, in April and May 1945, on Okinawa. His Medal of Honor citation tells the story:

DOSS, DESMOND T.

“Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Medical Detachment, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Urasoe Mura, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, 29 April-21 May 1945. Entered service at: Lynchburg, Va. Birth: Lynchburg, Va. G.O. No.: 97, 1 November 1945. Citation: He was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar and machinegun fire crashed into them, inflicting approximately 75 casualties and driving the others back. Pfc. Doss refused to seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying them 1 by 1 to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering them on a rope-supported litter down the face of a cliff to friendly hands. On 2 May, he exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in rescuing a wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines on the same escarpment; and 2 days later he treated 4 men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within 8 yards of enemy forces in a cave’s mouth, where he dressed his comrades’ wounds before making 4 separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. On 5 May, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small arms fire to assist an artillery officer. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot that offered protection from small arms fire and, while artillery and mortar shells fell close by, painstakingly administered plasma. Later that day, when an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Pfc. Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire. …”

There’s more, actually, about his own wounding. Doss’s tale is told in a book (“Unlikeliest Hero,” 1967) and a documentary (“The Conscientious Objector,” 2004). The Seventh-Day Adventists have reported a theatrical film based on his story is in production.

The religious component to the tale is not to be downplayed. This guy had a lifelong conviction that taking life, of any kind, was wrong; it was a belief intertwinted with his view of the Ten Commandments and his living relationship with his god. One of the stories about Doss on Okinawa has him calling his unit together and praying before the assault on a cliff; his unit was said to have suffered no casualties in the ensuing attack — and the believers hold that fact out as proof of a god extending a hand of protection over those devoutly seeking aid. Of course, I’ve got no problem believing Doss was devout, that his faith was sincere and suffused his whole being; on the other hand I have a little problem conceiving of a god who extends a hand of protection in the midst of a rain of violence, chaos, cruelty and death in which many, many other prayers go unanswered; unless, of course, the god is Zeus, Poseidson, Apollo, or Athena.

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Down the Path to Democracy

By way of Volokh and the Chicago Tribune:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Abdul Rahman told his family he was a Christian. He told the neighbors, bringing shame upon his home. But then he told the police, and he could no longer be ignored.

Now, in a major test of Afghanistan’s fledgling court system, Rahman, 42, faces the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity. Prosecutors say he should die. So do his family, his jailers, even the judge. Rahman has no lawyer. Jail officials refused to let anyone see Rahman on Monday, despite permission granted by the country’s justice minister.

The issue came up in the State Department’s daily briefing yesterday — a great opportunity for the administration that has decided to make its mark by spreading the light of freedom around the world to make a statement on the extreme intolerance and anti-democratic nature of our Afghan allies’ behavior. Here’s what spokesperson Sean McCormack had to say, in part:

“… We are watching this case closely and we urge the Afghani Government to conduct any legal proceedings in a transparent and a fair manner. Certainly we underscored — we have underscored many times and we underscored also to Foreign Minister Abdullah that we believe that tolerance and freedom of worship are important elements of any democracy. And certainly as Afghanistan continues down the pathway to democracy these are issues that they are going to have to deal with. These are not things that they have had to deal with in the past. Previously under the Taliban, anybody considered an apostate was subject to torture and death. Right now you have a legal proceeding that’s underway in Afghanistan and we urge that that legal proceeding take place in a transparent matter and we’re going to watch the case closely. ”

Down the path to democracy? At least he has the direction right. That summary reminds me of the old National Lampoon take on a high school U.S. history book (“The American Spectacle: 1492 to the Present”), with chapters titled (something like), “World War I: Pothole in the Road to World Peace.”

Reporters pressed McCormack to say why the administration isn’t simply calling for an end to the trial instead of merely insisting on judicial transparency; they even asked asked whether he would term the trial troubling. McCormack parried all questions with the response that this is a matter for the Afghans to work out under their constitution and that the administration has made its feelings known — in private — to the government. It’s just not the kind of restraint we’ve come to expect from a group that has dedicated itself to putting all the world’s ne’er-do-wells on notice.

[The update: Bush today says he is “deeply troubled” by the trial. And the Afghan government is having second thoughts about prosecuting Rahman. Not because its law is an expression of religious extremism, but because Rahman may be crazy. From the AP: “… Prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari said questions have been raised about [Rahman’s] mental fitness. ‘We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn’t talk like a normal person.’ Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination. ‘Doctors must examine him,’ he said. ‘If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped.’ “]

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Vice President Colbath, Part I

Consider for a moment — there’s no reason it must be this moment, but here it is anyway — the life of U.S. Vice President Jeremiah Jones Colbath. No — not a household name. In fact, if you look at a list of all the men who have served as No. 2, from John Adams to the current incumbent, you won’t find him. But he did serve.

When I was tapping out those president and vice president posts last month, I mentioned at one point being surprised at the number of vice presidents who had died in office. One of those was Henry Wilson, who was the second of Grant’s vice presidents. He suffered a stroke while in the Capitol in November 1875. Wilson was taken to the vice president’s suite, near the Senate floor, and died nearly two weeks later, on November 22.

The official biography includes a wonderful quote from one of Wilson’s eulogizers: “He was not learned, he was not eloquent, he was not logical in a high sense, he was not always consistent in his political actions, and yet he gained the confidence of the people, and he retained it to the end of his life.” The trust of the people, the Senate writeup suggests, came from his tireless habit of sounding out everyone he encountered about the issues of the day. “Confidence of the people” might be a little bit of a stretch, considering candidates for the U.S. Senate were elected by legislatures rather than popular vote until well into the 20th century. Reading about Wilson, you get the picture of someone who rose above the station that lack of learning, eloquence and logic “in a high sense” might have reserved for him — perhaps that of a modestly successful political hack. He had more than enough ambition, drive and smarts to play the game and become a master operator. A 1964 journal article on him was titled, “Henry Wilson: Unprincipled Know-Nothing,” a reference to Wilson’s abandonment of his stated anti-slavery stance in the early 1850s to secretly join the nativist, racist Know-Nothings in order to win support in an election.

Henrywilson
That started him on the path to prominence in Republican politics — he became a leader of the party’s radical wing during the Civil War and unsuccessfully campaigned for measures that would ensure racial equality after the war. When he died, the Senate was moved enough by his passing that it commissioned a bust eventually executed by Daniel Chester French, better known for sculpting the statue in the Lincoln Memorial, The Republic, a centerpiece of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. and the Concord Minuteman in Massachusetts. Among others.

[It’s late; to be continued.]

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Finn and His People

In honor of the day:

Finn

(from “At Swim-Two-Birds,” by Flann O’Brien)

“… Finn Mac Cool, a hero of old Ireland, came out before me from his shadow, Finn the wide-hammed, the heavy-eyed, Finn that could spend a Lammas morning with girdled girls at far-from-simple chess play. …

“Too great was he for standing. The neck to him was as the bole of a great oak, knotted and seized together with muscle-humps and carbuncles of tangled sinew, the better for good feasting and contending with the bards. The chest to him was wider than the poles of a good chariot, coming now out, now in, and pastured from chin to navel with meadows of black man-hair and meated with layers of fine man-meat the better to hide his bones and fashion the semblance of his twin bubs. The arms to him were like the necks of beasts, ball-swollen with their bunched-up brawnstrings and blood-veins, the better for harping and hunting and contending with the bards. Each thigh to him was to the thickness of a horse’s belly, narrowing to a green-veined calf to the thickness of a foal. Three fifties of fosterlings could engage with handball against the wideness of his backside, which was wide enough to halt the march of warriors through a mountain-pass.”

His People

“… Relate then the attributes that are to Finn’s people. …”

“I will relate, said Finn.

“Till a man has accomplished twelve books of poetry, the same is not taken for want of poetry but is forced away. No man is taken till a black hole is hollowed in the world to the depth of his two oxters and he put into it to gaze from it with his lonely head and nothing to him but his shield and a stick of hazel. Then must nine warriors fly their spears at him, one with the other and together. If he be spear-holed past his shield, or spear-killed, he is not taken for want of shield-skill. No man is taken till he is run by warriors through the woods of Erin with his hair bunched-loose about him for bough-tangle and briar-twitch. Should branches disturb his hair or pull it forth like sheep-wool on a hawthorn, he is not taken but is caught and gashed. Weapon-quivering hand or twig-crackling foot at full run, neither is taken. Neck-high sticks he must pass by vaulting, knee-high sticks by stooping. With the eyelids to him stitched to the fringe of his eye-bags, he must be run by Finn’s people through the bogs and marshes of Erin with two odorous prickle-backed hogs ham-tied and asleep in the seat of his hempen drawers. If he sink beneath a peat-swamp or lose a hog, he is not accepted of Finn’s people. For five days he must sit on the brow of a cold hill with twelve-pointed stag-antlers hidden in his seat, without food or music or chessmen. If he cry out or eat grass-stalks or desist from the constant recital of sweet poetry and melodious Irish, he is not taken but wounded. … One hundred head of cattle he must accommodate with wisdom about his person when walking all Erin, the half about his armpits and the half about his trews, his mouth never halting from the discoursing of sweet poetry. One thousand rams he must sequester about his trunks with no offence to the men or Erin, or he is unknown to Finn. …”

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On the Hustings

In that little reading list item on the left side of the page — “Daily Kos: 36 Months of Desperately Deadly Delusions” — I found myself using the expression “on the hustings.” Whence does it come?

Brief online researches disclose (for instance, at Word Detective; see the very bottom item of this August 11, 2000 post) that its origins lie in Old Norse (as do those of the House of Brekke, but that’s a longer story). The Oxford English Dictionary has this to say, in an entry that all told runs to more than 1,400 words:

“Old English. hústing, a. Old Norse. hús-thing, house-assembly, a council held by a king, earl, or other leader, and attended by his immediate followers, retainers, etc., in distinction from the ordinary thing or general assembly of the people.”

The OED entry explains that the word evolved over the centuries in English (and England), with meanings including a court of appeals and London’s supreme court; the area in London’s Guildhall inwhich the court was held; the platform in the Guildhall in which London’s mayor and aldermen met; and finally, getting us to the modern political campaign meeting, a platform upon which candidates for Parliament would appear before voters.

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‘Lend Me Your Ears’

This being the day it is, I started to think about Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and the line, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” I looked it up to make sure I had it right (I didn’t). I read the scene, which I saw performed once, about 10 years ago, during the late, lamented Berkeley Shakespeare Festival. Unfamiliar with it then, I found it thrilling. And it still is: the purity of the calculation in Antony’s speech, the thoroughness of his triumph as a demagogue, his mastery over the mob.

“Julius Caesar,” Act III, Scene II:

Brutus:

“…Hear me for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Cæsar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all free men? As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply. … ”

[Enter Antony and others, with Caesar’s body.]

“…Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the common wealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart: that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.”

Antony:

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious;

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Cæsar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,—

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men,—

Come I to speak in Cæsar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept;

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?

“… They that have done this deed are honourable:

What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,

That made them do it; they are wise and honourable,

And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:

I am no orator, as Brutus is;

But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,

That love my friend; and that they know full well

That gave me public leave to speak of him.

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,

Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,

To stir men’s blood: I only speak right on;

I tell you that which you yourselves do know,

Show you sweet Cæsar’s wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,

And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus,

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony

Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue

In every wound of Cæsar, that should move

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.”

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Trivial by Nature

When it comes to any subject, there’s good trivia and bad trivia; or maybe not bad, but ho-hum, something that fits too easily onto a Trivial Pursuit card An example of uninspiring trivia might be: Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977. An example of good (or at least better) trivia might involve where Elvis was when he was fatally stricken and what was he doing. (For the uninitiated, here’s the scatologist’s-eye view of the King’s passing.)

So I’ve been engaged in some bad and not-so-bad presidential trivia. It’s kind of a way to relax, I guess — or at least put part of my brain on idle (a big part, because I can’t claim any inspirations, related or unrelated, large or small, happened while I focused on this). It started with a simple question, now that Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays and Presidents Day have passed: In which month were the most presidents born (posted separately)?

When I start looking at a list of dates, all sorts of facts stick out and relationships suggest themselves. In presidential birth and death dates, perhaps the best-known and most striking is July 4, 1826, the day John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died; a less-mentioned coincidence is that a third president in first five, James Monroe, also died on the 4th of July, in 1831. That kind of coincidence doesn’t show up much in birth dates. Just two presidents — James K. Polk and Warren Harding — share a birthday, November 2 (start planning now).

Ronald Reagan lived longest of all the presidents, 93 years and 120 days. Gerald Ford, born July 14, 1913, could tie the record on Columbus Day this year. Herbert Hoover enjoyed — maybe endured is a better word — the longest retirement, 31 years and seven months. Ford’s in a solid second place in the retirement rankings, but two and a half years behind Hoover; Jimmy Carter, Ford’s successor is No. 4 in the retirement rankings; he’s not gaining on Ford, obviously, but he’ll move into the No. 3 spot, ahead of one-time dual longevity/retirement king John Adams, in early May. (And the shortest retirement? The aforementioned Polk, who outlived his single term by just three months.)

This is the kind of stuff they’re not teaching in our public schools.

After poring over some of the presidents’ biographical data, I did come up with a category that I’m sure someone out in the universe has happened upon but which hasn’t made it into the Wikipedia’s weirdly complete catalog of presidential trivia (see the very end of the entry President of the United States). The little seam I found to mine is represented by our current president and his predecessor: Of all the 42 men who have served as president, the two born closest together are Bush and Clinton. The list:

1. G.W. Bush (7/6/1946)-Clinton (8/19/1946): 44 days.

2. A. Johnson (12/29/1808)-Lincoln (2/12/1809): 45 days.

3. G.H.W. Bush (6/12/1924)-Carter (10/1/1924): 111 days.

4. Jackson (3/15/1767)-J.Q. Adams (7/11/1767): 118 days.

5. Grant (4/27/1822)-Hayes (10/4/1822): 160 days.

6. Nixon (1/9/1913)-Ford (7/14/1913): 186 days.

If you extend the concept to trios, here are the three closest groupings:

1. Wilson (12/28/1856)-Taft (9/15/1857)-T. Roosevelt (10/27/1858): 1 year, 9 months, 29 days.

2. Reagan (2/6/1911)-Nixon (1/9/1913)-Ford (7/14/1913): 2 years, 5 months, 11 days.

3. Arthur (10/5/1830)-Garfield (11/19/1831)-B. Harrison (8/20/1833): 2 years, 10 months, 15 days.

And at the other extreme, the chief executives born furthest apart — considering consecutive presidencies only — are:



1. Eisenhower (10/14/1890)-Kennedy (5/29/1917): 26 years, 5 months, 15 days.

2. G.H.W. Bush (6/12/1924)-Clinton (8/19/1946): 22 years, 2, months, 7 days.*

3. Buchanan (4/23/1791)-Lincoln (2/12/1809): 17 years, 9 months, 20 days.

4. Jackson (3/15/1767)-Van Buren (12/5/1782): 15 years, 9 months, 20 days.

5. McKinley (1/29/1843)-T. Roosevelt (10/27/1858): 15 years, 8 months, 29 days.

6. Taylor (11/29/1784)-Fillmore (1/7/1800): 15 years, 1 month, 9 days.

7. Reagan (2/6/1911)-Carter (10/1/24): 13 years, 7 months, 25 days.

No conclusions drawn from any of the above. The close birthdays show up some odd coincidences — Lincoln and Johnson, Nixon and Ford and their interrupted presidencies. The presidents born furthest apart might make a more interesting discussion. You might argue that in several cases, at least, the generational differences between the presidents played a role or reflected in some way a larger social and political upheaval that occurred at the same time (best cases for that: Buchanan-Lincoln, Kennedy-Eisenhower, McKinley-Roosevelt; worst case: Taylor-Fillmore).

That’s it. My brain’s very relaxed now.

*Added 3/5/2006 based on reader email that pointed out the difference in the first Bush’s and Clinton’s ages.