How I Imagined a Date with a Dead President

Growing older is full of surprises. I never, ever know where my mind will go, and I'm not always sure what to do once it gets there.

As my parents prepare for a big relocation, my mom is slowly purging their house of things they no longer need or use. Last Sunday, we were all sent to the basement to peruse a table of goodies my mom had for us to hopefully take home. I brought home a 48-page book about America, written in 1943 by a man whose son was being sent overseas as part of World War II. His son had been surprised by how little his fellow soldiers knew about why America was so great. Hmm. Maybe the Greatest Generation was, well, kind of like the rest of us.

Most of the book contains information about the presidents. Reading the cause of death for many of them is interesting. George Washington died of laryngitis, John Adams of old age, Thomas Jefferson of intestinal trouble. A few presidents down the list, we found that John Tyler died of a bilious attack. I don't even know what that is. The book also includes a copy of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, a list of facts about all 48 states, and plenty of information on military and service support organizations.

I've always been fascinated to read about history as seen by those in history. We were in the middle of a war, and the write-up of then-president FDR was full of patriotic support and vigor. George Washington was the only president deemed worthy of his very own page in the book.

I am approaching the age of 50. Since my early childhood, I have seen this book and other similar ones, all providing pictures of the presidents. They've always looked like old men to me--men of a different age than me in both chronology and era. Today, for the first time, I found myself looking at them as, well, men. I found myself thinking how distinguished some of them look and wondering what it would be like to sit across from them at a table while talking and drinking coffee. Um, what? A couple of them were quite good looking, and I even began to wonder what they would look like in modern clothes and hair styles and how I'm pretty sure I would have let Ulysses S. Grant take me on a date if neither of us were married.

Seriously, is this what it means to be my age? I look at this fascinating little slice of American history and end up daydreaming about a date with a dead president?