Picture it—I’m sitting in my living room in my usual spot on the loveseat. It’s the evening of the day of my latest medical procedure. I was not able to eat solid food for one full day before the procedure, so I am indulging in a delicious supper of fried egg and bacon sandwiches that my wife prepared especially for me.

I can remember a time when all my meals were eaten at the kitchen table with my mother and father. At that time it would have been unthinkable to eat a meal in the living room in front of the television. A snack, maybe, but never a meal.

While my wife and I were having a new living room built onto the house just before moving in, my wife informed me that we would not be eating in that room. Guess what? We eat every meal and every snack in that room, in front of the television. Only on very rare occasions when we have company do we eat at the dining room table. Even then the television usually stays on, and I can see the picture from my chair while I eat. It now seems I cannot eat a meal in my house without the television, though eating anywhere else without television is not an issue. I also cannot sleep in the bed without the television, though I can sleep for hours in my favorite chair in my home library with only the ticking of the clock for company.

We have Comcast (or Xfinity, if preferred) for both phone and cable. There is this wonderful feature that shows the identity (if known) and the number of the person calling the main house phone line. Yesterday evening, during my meal described above, the house phone rang. The identity showed as “Bill Haggerty”. I told my wife, “Don’t answer that! It’s somebody campaigning for office.” Out of curiosity, I muted the television to listen to the message as it recorded on the answering machine. My wife said, “That’s Trump!”
I listened more closely. It was indeed the voice of the President of the United States of America! Never in my life have I ever received a call from any President of the United States, current or former.

Was I impressed? Amazed is probably a better word. Many of you Faithful Readers probably received the same call. Some of you might have been offended by the call. It could have been worse. I encountered a gentleman at the post office the other day who had received a letter from President Trump. The man said the President requested quite a large donation!

I don’t recall any other President of the United States endorsing a candidate for public office, especially a sitting president. I knew from the advertisements that President Trump was endorsing Bill Haggerty, but I would never have dreamed that I would receive a phone call with the voice of President Trump asking for my vote for his endorsed candidate.
In a fashion to which President Trump’s opponents would have delighted, the recording began, then stopped after a few words. A pause, then the recording began once again, again stopping midstream. “The third time’s a charm”, and so it was with this message. The third attempt was uninterrupted, the entire message conveyed.
Though a recording, this incident serves as the closest encounter with a living president I have had; however, this is not the only time I have been touched by Presidential greatness.

On one of the vacations I took with my brother, we visited the US Air Force Museum on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. On that visit, I was privileged to stand on the very spot on the actual floor of the then Air Force One on which Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn into office after John F. Kennedy’s assassination!

In my mind, I could see the famous picture of that event reprinted in so many history books. Johnson was solemn. Mrs. Kennedy was standing at his left in clothes stained with her slain husband’s blood. Claudia Alta (aka Lady Bird) Johnson stood to her husband’s right. Johnson was sworn into office by US District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, the only woman to administer the oath of office to a United States president. (Source: https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/president-johnsons-naked-press-…, Retrieved July 21, 2020)

I actually found myself “choking-up” on this occasion. LBJ was president when I was born, the first president under whose administration I lived. That fact by itself would not have caused me to react.

When I was a student at Maynardville Elementary, I noticed that classroom televisions, record players and pull down maps had the letters “ESEA” followed by a Roman numeral and two digits (e.g., ESEA-I-68). As I always wanted to be a teacher, I had an interest in everything in the schools. I always wondered what those letters and numbers meant, but if I ever asked, I don’t recall receiving an answer that stuck with me.

As an employee of the Union County Public Schools, I have come to know very well what every one of those numbers and letters represented. Even more significant to me was the fact that President Johnson signed the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) into law April 11, 1965 as a key component of his War on Poverty program. I feel a kinship here as I was born barely three months later on July 8, 1965. ESEA has become particularly relevant to me in my current role as Supervisor of Federal Programs for the Union County Public Schools, as my role is to manage the federal education funds for Titles I, II, III, IV and V that the system receives from the federal government via the State of Tennessee. Were it not for President Johnson’s landmark legislation, I would not have the job I have today. It would be nonexistent.

When I first became the federal programs supervisor, every year all program directors would attend a meeting in Nashville. At each of these meetings, Dr. Julie McCargar, then Director of Federal Programs for the State of Tennessee, would repeat the history of ESEA, always noting it was President Lyndon B. Johnson who signed the act into law. ESEA has been consistent since its inception, though it was renamed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) when signed into law by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002 (Source: https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/no-child-left-behind-overv…, Retrieved July 21, 2020) and as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) when signed into law by the previous administration on December 10, 2015 (Source: https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn, Retrieved July 21, 2020).

Wonder if I’ve had other presidential encounters? Read my next submission, Faithful Reader, and perhaps you’ll see. Until then, I leave you with a thought from the world of email.

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play;
bring a friend, if you have one."
-George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."
-Winston Churchill, in response