The school year ended without any more trouble. Greg and I kept our distance. After our shoving match at the movie theatre, Greg must have realized, he and his friends could no longer intimidate me.
Bruce and I started to hang out together more often once summer break began. Sometimes Wendy would tag along. Bruce told me his mom made him include Wendy. I think Wendy was secretly his best friend and he wanted her to come along. Some days it was good to have Wendy hang around. Mostly on the days, her mom baked those awesome chocolate chip cookies.
One day, Wendy invited me to her house to play Monopoly with her and Bruce. We played at her dining room table. Before we played, Wendy showed me her bedroom. The walls were pink. Her bed had a pink blanket on it. I needed to get out of there before I puked.
A few weeks into our summer break, Bruce, Wendy and their families went on a trip to Maine for two weeks. I was sad. I never realized until they went away how much they had become my friends.
The second week they were away, Grandmother Helen visited from Baltimore. She was Mom’s mom. She didn’t give big kisses like Grandma Marie did. Grandmother Helen would squeeze so hard I thought my ribs would break. She was bigger than Grandma Marie was and even wider than Grandpa Frank.
The third day Grandmother Helen was visiting, she and Mom were watching “our stories” on television. I took my book out on the back porch. It was a hot sunny day. I brought some iced tea with me. I sat in one of the four chairs next to the round table that had a big umbrella sticking out from the center of it. One of the other chairs had tiny holes in it. The chair smelled like cigarettes. That one was Dad’s private spot to smoke. Mom never allowed Dad to smoke in the house. I opened up the umbrella to erase the direct sunlight from my eyes.
Soon after starting to read, a person shaped like Grandmother Helen, but even larger than her, appeared in one of the other chairs at the table. He had a large mustache. He sat quietly for several minutes while I continued to read. Eventually, I spoke with him.
“You look hot in that long coat, mister. Do you wanna cup of tea?”
“That’s kind of you, young man, but no. I won’t be here long. I’m only in need of a small respite from all the arguing.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes. Who are you arguing with?”
He laughed. “Who am I not arguing with? For years, I argued with my own political party, the Republicans. Now I sit and listen to attorneys argue in the Supreme Court. The law has always been my true passion. Most days, I love hearing legal arguments, but today maybe I’m a bit worn down.”
I sat up in my chair and put the book on the table. “Friends are hard to find, mister. My two best friends are away right now. I don’t think I’m gonna argue with them so much when they get back. I miss em. Please don’t tell Wendy I miss her.”
The large man smiled. I continued.
“Since they went away, all I pretty much do is read. I could watch television with Mom and Grandmother Helen but they watch the same hospital show every day at the same time. One day they were even crying watching their dopey show.”
“Reading is vital to developing your mind,” the man said. “Attorneys are ferocious readers. It is essential to their livelihood. Have you considered the law as a career path, Alex?”
“What’s a career?”
The big man stared out into our back yard. He looked back at me and shook his head. “I was told by Sam Wilson you were very mature for your age. However, it never occurred to me no one has spoken to you about your future.”
“All of you old guys, who have been showing up, keep forgetting I’m only eleven and a half. What’s your name, mister?”
“I am Chief Justice William Howard Taft. I was also the twenty-seventh President of the United States of America. To answer your other question, a career is something you have chosen to do. Something you aspire to do with your life’s work. I knew all along that I was better suited for the courts than being president. I should have followed my own instincts.”
Something jarred my thoughts. “Wait, a minute. I know you. I remember Grandpa talking about you at dinner. You ran for president against two people and because you did, Tommy Wilson got to be president. Grandpa is sore about that. I think I am too. I met Tommy. He’s still trying to convince me the harder I work, the more money I should pay to his Treasury.”
The Chief Justice let out a belly laugh. “Yes, I imagine you are referring to the progressive income tax, President Wilson and Congress enacted. Understand young man, we cannot run a government without revenue. It’s why I supported the tax on corporations.”
“Yeah well, I don’t like taxes. They cost me over two weeks allowance when I bought my tape player. Can’t we fix that thing about the harder you work the more you pay? I mean, why should I work harder, if I only give my money to Tommy? You were president; you must know how to fix it.”
“Alex, I’ve served my time and fought the good fight. It’s now up to you and your generation to determine the future of our great nation. I was asked to visit with you and share my experiences and to let you know, I will be here should you need advice. As far as changing tax laws, I suggest you become acquainted with your elected officials, or run for political office when you are of age. That could be a possible career path for you. Then you can fight to change the tax laws yourself.”
I scratched my head. “That’s a long time away. I mean, I have to wait until I’m ancient to be president and change the laws. By then Tommy Wilson might have all my money.”
Chief Justice Taft unbuttoned his top shirt button and loosened his tie. He wiped the sweat that formed on his top lip. “You don’t have to be old, Alex. You have to be thirty-five to be president or vice president, thirty to be a senator and a mere twenty-five to be a member of the House of Representatives. That’s my mission in visiting with you. To get you to understand that our country needs strong leaders of all ages. Consider a future in politics, Alex. You may not like everything that surrounds a life in politics, but if not you, someone else will make choices for you.”
“Wendy thinks she’s going to be president and make everyone wear pink.”
William frowned at me. “President? A woman? Surely not in my lifetime. They only won the right to vote a decade ago.”
“I won’t tell Wendy you said that. She can hold a pretty good grudge.”
“Is Wendy a friend of yours? Well, times do change, my young friend. It once was, in some states, you had to own land to vote. It wasn’t until the 1820’s and 30’s the laws changed. Nevertheless, I would encourage you to serve in our government. We are a great nation, Alex.”
“Is the president the one who can make it so if I work really hard I get to keep more of the money I earn? Yeah, I guess Wendy is a friend of mine. Even if she is a girl.”
William smiled. “There are three branches in our government. You have the Executive, which is our President. You have the Judicial, which is our court systems. In addition, you have the Legislative, which is Congress. Congress makes the laws and is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate.”
“I really don’t like Tommy thinking he can raid my piggy bank.”
Justice Taft laughed. “You really don’t like taxes, do you? Well, all spending bills originate in the House of Representatives. That is where many start their political careers in Washington. If you are a member in good standing in the House, you hold office for two years. The Senate has a longer term of six years.”
“Oh, if I ever want to have a career in politics, then I should be a Senator. Why do it for two years if you can do it for six? That makes more sense, don’t you think, Mr. Taft?”
“That’s one way of looking at it. However, there are only two Senators from each state. The larger states, with more citizens, have many more members in the House of Representatives. Our founding fathers envisioned House members elected from the common people. The everyday workers from local towns. They would spend two years in Washington, then return home to continue their careers. However, many
of our elected officials have forgotten what our founders had envisioned. In my opinion too many have overstayed the intent of the founding fathers.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Taft. Maybe Wendy is right. Maybe being president and being the boss of everyone should be my career. I would just tell people no more taxes.”
William sat straight up. He gave me one of those looks Dad gives me when I didn’t get my chores done. “The president is one of the three equal branches, Alex. Yes, he does have some authority. He can invoke with an executive order, but eliminating taxes is not one of them. My friend and former President Teddy Roosevelt and I never did agree upon presidential powers. He thought the president should have more power. It was one reason why he ran against me after he had already been president. That is how President Wilson won with less than fifty percent of the popular vote. However, Wilson did secure enough Electoral votes to win the election.”
I never realized until that day how a disagreement among so few could affect so many. “So you don’t think the president is the boss of everyone and can do whatever he or she wants to do?”
“I have recently completed my memoirs, Alex. In there I have written, the President can exercise no power which cannot fairly be traced to some specific grant of power in the Constitution or act of Congress."
Mom called out, “Dinner, sweetie, wash up please.”
I turned to thank Chief Justice William Taft spending time with me. He was gone.
The next day Mom and both of my grandmothers dragged me off antique shopping from Princeton to New Brunswick. Mom didn’t trust me to stay home alone for the day. I promised not to leave the house, but my plea fell short. Unfortunately, I was dragged off with three women on a shopping spree.
In one of the shops, sat an aged yellow newspaper that caught the attention of Grandma Marie. “Oh, I remember this day. It was the first time I ever voted,” she laughed. “I vividly remember my father telling me that if I didn’t vote for ole Harry Truman he was going to kick me out of the house. I think he forgot Frank and I were getting married and I was leaving in a few weeks anyway. Frank told me to vote for Dewey.”
Grandma Marie handed the paper to Mom. “Who did you vote for?” Mom asked.
“Blood is thicker than water, my dear, but don’t ever tell Frank I said that.”
Mom put the paper back on the table. I walked over and read the first few paragraphs from the Chicago Daily Tribune. I guess most people thought Dewey won the election for president. However, the man who was already President, Harry Truman, won reelection. Reading the paper made me curious about Truman. I began asking how much longer we would be shopping and doing more deficit spending. I wanted to go home and see if Harry wrote any stories in my book.
“We will get home when we get home, sweetie,” Mom said. “And just because you spent all your savings on your tape player, doesn’t mean I don’t have money to spend. Now put a smile on your face. If you are good, we can stop for ice cream after lunch.”
Both grandmothers gave me a brief look before wandering down another endless aisle full of junk. The day dragged. I thought about Wendy and Bruce fishing and swimming in some cold lake in Maine. My day continued with me munching on a chilli cheese dog from a vendor in a truck. Whoopee. Grandma Marie said her knee was starting to hurt. We ended our day after looking at one last oil painting. It was a tree in a field. I told everyone if I tried extra hard I could copy that painting. The man selling the painting told me I couldn’t. The sales man in the store told Mom she could have it for only three thousand and five hundred dollars. I thought he was joking. After learning, he wasn’t, I asked for a paint set for my birthday.
I went to my room after dinner and turned on my stereo. I tried to read about Harry Truman but my eyes were too heavy. I didn’t understand how old women had so much energy to look at stuff all day. Especially since none of them bought a thing, but told each other what a great time they had. They wanted to do it again before Grandmother Helen went back to Baltimore. I fell asleep while WNEW played side two of “Dark Side of the Moon.”
The next morning, Dad reminded me of my chores. I had to empty the dishwasher and sweep the back porch. Grandmother Helen seemed happy cleaning up the dishes after breakfast. When I suggested she could empty the dishwasher too, taking all the clean laundry from the basement to the bedrooms was added to my chores. Jeepers, one simple suggestion and Dad gets all fired up.
After chores, I took my book to the park. Greg and a couple of the kids from school were tossing a baseball around. I stayed away from them. I hadn’t seen much of Greg since school ended, which was fine with me. I sat under a tree and started to read. There was a soft wind swirling around the park. Rain clouds formed in the distance.
A shadow ran across my face. I looked up to see a man with rounded glasses peering down at me. He had short hair and held a hat in his hands. His sports coat looked like one Grandpa Frank wore to church. His jacket was light brown but his pants were darker. His white shirt was spotless but unlike many of the old men I met, he wasn’t wearing a tie. He kept staring at me. I didn’t know why.
“Are you Harry Truman?” I asked.
“I am.”
“I saw you smiling in a photo on a newspaper yesterday. Did you really think you were going to have to stop being president?”
Mr. Truman raised his chin and looked out at the oncoming storm clouds. “I will admit not many gave us a chance. My popularity was low heading into the election. My own party even tried to recruit General Eisenhower to replace me as the Democrat’s choice to run for president. The General turned them down.”
“The more I meet you presidents, the more I realize it’s really hard to be a leader. Someone always seems unhappy, no matter what you do.”
Truman gently smiled. “I think that’s true for most leaders, Alex. What are you reading?”
I closed my book and clutched it to my chest. I wasn’t sure I trusted Harry yet. “It’s a book about past presidents. I was reading about you. Is it true you never finished college, Mr. Truman?”
“Sad to say, but that is true. I wanted nothing more than to go to West Point, but it wasn’t to be because of my poor vision. I did enroll in a different school and took a few classes. However, I joined the work force before enlisting in the Missouri Army National Guard. Even enlisting was difficult because of my impaired vision. Don’t tell anyone, but I memorized the eye chart so I could join.”
“Did you get in trouble for cheating? I got in trouble with Mom even when I didn’t cheat. You musta got into trouble with your mom for cheating on a test.”
Harry laughed. “No one found out, Alex. Keep that between us. After enlisting, I spent some time in France during the war. My men and I offered General Patton support for his tank brigade near the end of the war. It was a great honor for me.”
“Did you get to be a general and be the big boss?”
“Not while I was still in the army. Later I did. Remember the big boss of the army is the President. The President is the Commander in Chief of our armed forces. I made it as far as captain before the war ended. I ended up heading back home and married my beautiful Bess. I started a small shop but it didn’t go so well. We were forced to close up.”
“How come it closed, Mr. Truman?”
Truman walked across the park and brought back a chair. He sat next to me. “Why did it close you ask? Well, we were in a bad time economically, called a recession. Many businesses closed, not only mine. For a time, I felt lost. I worked an odd job here and there until with some assistance from friends, I became a presiding judge. It was an administrative job that helped shape the skyline of Kansas City with new road works and buildings.”
“That sounds like a good job. It must be cool to be the boss.”
“I enjoyed my job. However, I wanted to move up the ranks politically. I wanted to be Governor of Missouri, possibly a Senator. The problem was the same people who helped me become presiding judge weren’t in any hurry to throw their support my
way.”
“Who cares, Mr. Truman? Chief Justice Taft told me everyone has the ability to choose a career. Why did you think someone could stop you?”
Truman smirked. He looked around the grounds at the kids playing ball. “Politics is a different animal, Alex. One of my supporters was a man by the name of Pendergast. He went a long way in deciding who would represent our state in Washington and locally.”
“That doesn’t seem right. How can one man decide? Don’t people vote in Missouri?”
Harry laughed so hard his chair was shaking. “Mark Twain once said, ‘If voting mattered, they wouldn’t let us do it.’ One day I will teach you about political machines in Missouri and elsewhere. For now, understand that you cannot win elections without political backing, especially for Governor or Senator.
I didn’t understand how a machine could decide elections. I thought Harry was talking about an actual mechanical machine. A couple of years later, another President explained to me what Harry Truman meant by a political machine.
Mr. Truman went on to tell me about how Mr. Pendergast eventually helped Harry become Senator representing Missouri. Harry would sometimes vote the way Mr. Pendergast wanted Harry to vote. Harry told me, “By offering a little to the machine, I saved a lot.” I didn’t know what Harry meant, but I listened.
Truman told me about how the man who was president at the time Harry was Senator was ill. Many Democrats worried that President Franklin Roosevelt would not live until his time as President was over. Not many people liked the man who was the vice president. When the next election came around, the Democrats asked Harry if he would be Vice President if President Roosevelt won the election again. Harry accepted and became Vice President. As many predicted, President Roosevelt was elected again but soon died. Harry Truman became President.
“I was only Vice President for eighty-two days when Roosevelt died, Alex. The man barely spoke to me. I got myself into some hot water when my old friend Tom Pendergast passed away. I attended his funeral. Mr. Pendergast had run into some trouble with the law and spent some time in prison. People around me never liked the idea of a Vice President attending the funeral of a criminal, but the man was a friend of mine. I felt obligated to attend his funeral.”
“The only funeral I went to was my grandfather’s but I don’t remember it much. I was a kid.”
Harry Truman smiled and looked at the rain clouds approaching. “The funeral didn’t upset me. What upset me more was right after I took my oath to become president, being briefed that our government had been working on a secret weapon. It was so top secret, even as Vice President, no one informed me of its existence. The plan was called The Manhattan Project.”
“Whoa, a secret weapon? Like the ones in the Terminator movies? Or cool light sabers like the one Luke Skywalker used in Star Wars?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. No, they were about to test the first atomic bomb.”
“Everyone knows about Luke blowing up the Death Star. I have it on VHS.”
“This isn’t some comic book, Mr. Truman said. “This was a very serious issue. The war had ended in Europe. I traveled to Potsdam, Germany and met with Stalin and Churchill to determine how to punish the Germans for starting the war. It infuriated me when I mentioned to Stalin that we were close to testing the atomic bomb and he knew as much about it as I did. That was the beginning of cold relations between the United States and Russia.”
“Yeah, Grandpa Frank calls em the Rooskies. He told me all about the time we beat them in hockey in the Olympics. He said it was like the biggest upset ever in sports.”
Truman seemed irritated. He squirmed around in his chair before speaking faster, “I’m trying to tell you about the decision I had to make about dropping the atomic bomb on Japan and you’re running your mouth on about some Star Wars comic and a hockey game. Now pay attention, this is important. One day you might be faced with a similar dilemma.”
I wanted to go home. I could smell the rain. Lighting was in the area. “Ok, Mr. Truman, but hurry up and finish, the sky is dark now.”
“I ordered Japan to surrender. They refused. My job as Commander in Chief was to decide if we would save more lives and money in using our new technology or continue waging war in the Pacific region. I still believe I made the proper decision in dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even though the skies over Japan looked like the dark sky you see over us now, it ended the war with Japan.”
“You still didn’t tell me about the newspaper story, Harry. How come people didn’t think you would be President anymore?”
“After the war ended, our funding for the military was reduced. Some people, who worked around me, did things that were not smart. I was paying the price for that politically. Most assumed I would lose. I prevailed. I finished out my term and moved back home to write my memoirs. I could talk to you for hours about the Korean War and my fight for civil rights in our great land but there is danger in the sky.”
Lighting hit close to the park. Harry disappeared. Mom pulled up in the parking lot yelling from the car window to get inside.
~~~*~~~
Chapter Nine