Gerald and Me

In the spring of 1964 my family was headed in our 1964 Buick Riviera for a vacation to North Carolina. My dad, as usual, had the gas pedal to the floor and a single-minded purpose to make it as far as he could that night, three whining boys and their mother be-damned.

We made it to Cumberland, KY, which was not too bad since we didn’t leave from Grand Rapids until about 4 p.m. My dad also had a hidden agenda – to get to a motel in time to watch the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston championship fight. My dad thought Clay was a loudmouth (decidedly true) and Liston a gentleman (also true), so his main interest was watching Liston de-pretty-fy Clay with a few well aimed left hooks.

When we arrived at the motel, we saw two cars with Michigan plates. Mrs. Laz and the kids accuse me of believing I live in a small world – thinking everyone looks familiar and under the illusion that I know everyone when I find out they’re from Michigan – but apparently my father had the same affliction. I remember him saying that the cars parked near our room looked familiar and because the license plates back then noted the county the car was from, he knew the other drivers were from the same general area, Kent County.

This gave my dad an idea. Why not knock on the door of the fellow Michiganders and introduce his family (and you think I have social assimilation problems)? I also believe my dad wanted to see if there were adult males in the room so he could watch the bout with those who could appreciate the sweet science of boxing. So he knocked on the door, which was answered by our Congressman, Gerald R. Ford, and his brother, a contractor in Michigan who my father worked with. We were invited to come in and watch the fight, won by Clay when Liston didn’t come out to begin the Seventh Round.

Watching the fight with such important people was one of my earliest memories (I was almost 7 years old). I have thought about that day a number of times as Ford moved up in the House leadership and then became a reluctant vice president and president. We were always proud of President Ford and there was a sign in my front yard that read: “Welcome to East Grand Rapids, home of President Gerald R. Ford.” I had illusions the sign would be amended to read, “and Laz,” but I didn’t fare as well as I hoped in the 1968 primaries, falling behind Pat Paulsen and Snoopy. They really had a stacked deck of candidates back then, didn’t they?