Presidential Hobbies

A month or so ago, something fluttering in front of me caught my eye and I thought, hey, wouldn't it be fun to do a post on presidential hobbies.

That was, of course, BTU - before the unthinkable - back in the good old days when I thought I'd be cherrily writing about President Kamala Harris and her cooking - and not grinding my teeth over the idea of the malign and terrifying, manifestly unfit creature that is DJT once more occupying the White House. Where - when he's not out golfing so he can overcharge the Secret Service for their rooms in his mildewy hotels - he'll, no doubt, be indulging in his favorite indoor pasttimes: rage tweeting, retribution, watching Fox News and Newsmax suck up to him, and buttering up to (and sharing state secrets with) his autocratic buddies. And doing so with a vengeance. A literal vengeance.

Anyway, I ended up reading a short piece on (some) presidential hobbies on a site called History Facts, and found a couple of little gems:

John Quincy Adams was a skinny dipper. Sure, he had other more cerebral pursuits, like reading and writing, but Massachusetts' own liked to start out each morning with a walk and a dip in the Potomac. 

Abe Lincoln had given up the sport before he began his presidency, but he had apparently been quite the wrestler in his day and was, in fact, posthumously inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, OK. There he's enshrined with fellow presidents George Washington, William Howard Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt. And a bunch of wrestlers I've never heard of. 

If you're looking for wrestlers you've actually heard of - like Andre the Giant and Gorilla Monsoon, Killer Kowalski and Lou Albano - you're talking the WWE HofF, which is virtual.

Although he'd given up wrestling, Lincoln had other distractions to keep his mind off of, say, the Civil War. According to his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, Abe's hobby was cats.

Lots of presidents like to ride horseback - think of Ronald Reagan handsomely and presidentially astride some handsome and presidential steed - but Calvin Coolidge may have been the only president to ride a mechanical horse. 

The electric horse — a barrel-shaped contraption made of wood, metal, and leather — was installed in the White House for the president’s exercise. Coolidge, who loved riding actual horses, became rather fond of the mechanical version. He rode it three times a day both for exercise and as a stress reliever (and, one might assume, for pleasure). The mechanical horse even had two variable gaits: “trot” and “gallop.”

Well, ride 'em, Cowboy Coolidge! 

But back to Ronald Reagan for a sec. Years ago, I read a book in which a young American recounted the time she spent in Ireland. I believe the book was Whoredome in Kimmage by Rosemary Mahoney. There's one wonderful scene in which an Irishman is talking about Reagan, but he can't quite come up with his name. "You know," he tells Mahoney, "the cowboy married to the voodoo doll."

Indeed.

According to History Facts, JFK collected model ships and scrimshaw. These, I guess, were his public, scrubbed down hobbies, given that his real hobby (kept hidden by a press who no doubt admired his prowess) was womanizing. Estimates I've seen of his White House trysts run from dozens to hundreds to 1,000's during his mythic Thousand Days. 

Yet he still found time to manage the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

As Marilyn Monroe said - or sang - it best, "Happy Birthday, Mr. President."

Fast forward a bit, and there was no womanizing in the Nixon White House. None of that sort of hanky panky. Just avid bowling when Tricky Dick needed a break from paranoia and going after his enemies, as well as from doing some actually decent presidenting. Like opening up China and starting the EPA. 

When he wasn't skirt chasing and having completely inappropriate sex with an intern, Bill Clinton wasn't just playing the saxophone. He was a crossword puzzle wiz. 

I love doing crossword puzzles. So, note to self, get some NY Times crossword puzzle books so I can hunker down and avoid the news.

Sure wish that news was going to include some cooking tips and recipes from Kamala.

Sigh...