I said, "Al Smith, I think, but I will look it up to make sure."
Since Bob is 80, I didn't have to explain who Al Smith was.
It was not Al Smith.
I was wrong.
I was close, though (they say "close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades). I was definitely in the right neighborhood. In the U.S. presidential election of 1928, Republican candidate Herbert Hoover won the electoral college vote 444 to 87, defeating the Democratic candidate, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. During the presidential campaign, a circular published by the Republican Party claimed that if Herbert Hoover won there would be “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.“ I had the right year but the wrong guy.
Note that Herbert Hoover himself never specifically made such a promise, but that was the perception throughout the land. In actuality, less than a year after his election the stock market crashed. During the decade-long Great Depression that followed, many people didn't have chickens, pots, cars, or garages.
A memorable thing happened in 1931 when, on the president's birthday, radio announcer Harry Von Zell goofed, creating one of the most famous spoonerisms of all time when he inadvertently referred to Herbert Hoover as Hoobert Heever.
Which one looks more presidential to you?
To my mind, Mr. Hoover looks like a very kind Methodist minister (he was Quaker) and Mr. Smith looks like either a robber baron of the Victorian era or a New York City police commissioner.
Not that I'm given to making snap judgments.
Riiiight.
Later, while we were walking on adjacent treadmills, I asked Bob why he had asked me that question. He replied that he had seen his wife putting a chicken in a roaster pan.
Moral of today's post: There is generally a perfectly logical reason for everything that happens even if you can't see it at the time.
Every day is a school day.
ReplyDeleteGraham,.for some strange reason your comment made me think of an old song, “Every Street’s A Boulevard In Old New York” but “Every Day With Jesus Is Sweeter Than The Day Before” didn’t even cross my mind until just now. We are strange creatures.
DeleteMore fun facts.
ReplyDeleteEmma, I can’t tell whether you think that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Delete'No child left behind' is another, popular but unrealistic political statement.
ReplyDeleteKate, the No Child Left Behind Act Of 2001, a creation of the George W. Bush administration, received much criticism over the years from many quarters. It was repealed by Congress in 2015 and replaced by the Every Child Succeeds Act. Time, as they say, will tell.
DeleteYou make mistakes? You have just shattered the certainties in my world.
ReplyDeleteit is difficult to understand you with your tongue in your cheek.
DeleteForrest Gump said that life is like a box of chocolates but in reality it's like two Bobs on a treadmill - working hard but getting nowhere.
ReplyDeleteMr. Pudding, begging your pardon, sir, but shouldn’t that be two Bobs on two treadmills?
DeleteOh I see. When you said that Bob M was your "treadmill buddy" I assumed that you share the same treadmill - perhaps with arms round each other's shoulders like true buddies. Clearly the picture I painted in my mind was unreal. Apologies for any distress this error may have caused.
DeleteI'd put a bob each way?
ReplyDeleteKate, I'm trying to picture just what you mean but I'm confused as to what you mean exactly. Could you elaborate, please?
DeleteJust a wee play on an Australian and New Zealand saying Bob. First idea was of course a Bob on one treadmill and a Bob on the other. But the expression 'A bob each way' or sometimes 'Two bob each way' is an expression from the betting world (on the horses, usually), which means 'to cover all contingencies'. So you are betting on both outcomes.
DeleteAh, the light dawns in my feeble brain. The fact that a bob is money in the BCN never crossed my mind. I am truly an ugly American.
Delete