Back on the road (finally!)

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the new Route 51 website. I hope you like it!

I apologize for taking so long getting the site back up and running. It was a little more complicated and time consuming than I expected. I must mention that without Paige’s diligence and perseverance, the site wouldn’t be up at all. So, thank you, Paige.

I must admit I was in a quandary over what my inaugural Blog was going to be about. I certainly didn’t want to talk about my health. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of even thinking about it, let alone talking about it. The quicker I can put it in my rearview mirror, the better. Before we get off that subject, however, I want to thank you all for your kind words and concerns regarding my health. I’m not 100% yet, but believe me, I am getting there.

Now -- let’s start our engines and ease out onto Route 51. Since we’re not going to use a map, let's just roll the window down, let the warm summer air blow through our hair and see where the road takes us, shall we?

Due to my inactivity these past several months I’ve found myself in front of the TV a lot. Mostly, I’ve been watching the news. What do you think has been the most dominant news story? … Yep, you guessed it… that Barnum & Bailey three-ring circus we call the presidential primaries. Where Elephants attack the audience and Donkeys… well the Donkeys just make Asses of themselves.

At first I thought it was humorous, but the more I watched, the more dismayed I became. I kept asking myself, “Was all this anger and hurtfulness always part of the process?” I can remember past elections being heated, but nothing like this. So, I dusted off some of my old history books to see if elections that happened before my time were any different. I learned that, yes, this election has indeed raised the bar in vitriol, but it’s not necessarily unprecedented. The more I read, the more my interest in past elections began to shift toward the men who chose to run for the most powerful office in the country… or the world for that matter.

Half of what I knew about past presidents I learned in school, but as an adult I learned that half of that was either inaccurate or just plain not true. The other half, I picked up here and there. So, basically, I knew very little about the men who have led this great country from the 18th century into the 21st century.

Except for a handful of them, most of the men who held the office of President of the United States of America were nothing more then a bunch of dead white guys to me.

So, since I had the time, I decided to read up on every president we’ve ever had. That’s right, all 44 of them. I learned that some were great men of great intellectual prowess, some… not so much. But, after reading their stories, I realized they were all just men with faults and weaknesses like we all have. Some overcame their foibles, and some didn’t, but they all had a personal story that was fascinating to me.

And that’s what I’d like to share with you in my Blogs.

These musings will not be biographies ... simply snapshots of interesting or funny things that struck me regarding the lives of these 44 men, who, by desire or by accident, found themselves in the position of being the most powerful men in the country, and in some cases, in the world.

So, grab the steering wheel everyone. In my next post, we’re heading towards Virginia... where it all started.