Council on National Awareness

For the Presidents’ Day Council on National Awareness, I sat down and thought of twenty-seven presidents, all on my own without secondary sources.

I started with the presidents of my lifetime. That only brought me to Nixon. Then I did the big ones—Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson—monuments of the National Mall, everybody knows those. Then there are the other ones, random, scattered around in my brain. I couldn’t remember why I remembered Taft, but I knew Garfield had died in office without being assassinated (that we know of). Next, I went down the alphabet and picked up a few more. Then I went through the currency, trying to remember who was on every bill, but I got kind of lost after the twenty.

I thought I did pretty well to get twenty-seven commander-&-chiefs. I was surprised at who I remembered, and more surprised at who I forgot! How do you forget a Grover Cleveland, who was twice president? Or Woodrow Wilson, whom everybody studies in school? Hoover!

Maybe next year I’ll remember there are two John Adams’ and two Johnsons. For this year, I learned that McKinley is more than a mere mountain in Alaska, and that Polk is not just a Florida county.