Presidential Quotes and Jokes

It’s been an interesting week, hasn’t it? I was looking for a way to describe it in last week’s Citizen and settled for “interesting.” Now “momentous” seems better.

I’ve been up late all week and I’ve noticed ideas slipsliding around and not necessarily relating to one another, so please excuse any misunderestimation, as W called it..

A couple of weeks ago, Bank of America changed the password or ID on my credit card for no reason I can fathom, and won’t let me into my own account. I don’t have a lot of money in their bank but I like to visit now and then to be sure it’s still there.

I took my problem to one of the higher officials here at BOA, asked her what I did wrong. Nothing, she assured me. It’s just a move they occasionally make to maintain security. She helped me make the changes necessary and said it would work fine now and to let her know if I have any more trouble.

I’m still being shut out. Now I’m getting the explanation that I’ve tried getting on line too often and I guess they suspect I’m a robber trying to get in there to steal my own money.

I was worried that I couldn’t use my credit card, and maybe the old one wouldn’t work either, but so far that hasn’t been the problem.

So far. Enter National Wildlife Federation, which because of a couple of magazine subscriptions sends me at least two pieces of mail weekly. They are really cute magazines for very small children – you guessed it, the Withnell boys in Leesburg, Va. – and the subscriptions run from November to November so as to make them Christmas gifts. NWF starts “reminding” me to renew them in January. We get greeting card offers and solicitations for everything else you can think of: lap throws, outdoorsy garments, jewelry, plush toys, wind chimes. Think how much good that money would do if used to save the polar bear.

So I wait until November to renew the boys’ subscriptions, on line, and they keep telling me that, after aching minutes entering info into little boxes, my credit card doesn’t match their records.

Crushed, I give up after several evenings’ efforts and dial the free 877 number on the renewal letter and reach a human being. On a Saturday night. The fellow says the outside firm that runs the computer center isn’t working and NWF employees are taking their own orders. The young man who talked to me obviously had access to my files because he had the info entered with just my last name and the new credit card number. To reassure me, he says, “Samuel and Uriah will get their magazines for another year.”

I’m glad that’s done. It took about three minutes. All our gift-shopping should be so easy.

We’ve got a new president-elect who does not understand the meaning of the word “enormity.” That’s all right, lots of other people don’t either. He misused it in a speech yesterday, referring to the enormity of the job ahead, obviously trying to depict how large a job it will be to select cabinet and other staff members.

I’m going to try to get his staff to correct him. Maybe he’ll hire me as his personal proof reader. Will keep you posted.

The problem: The dictionary defines “enormity” as excessive wickedness, outrageousness, a monstrous offense or evil, an outrage; in careful usage, the noun enormity is NOT used to express the idea of great size; the quality of extreme wickedness; an act of extreme evil or wickedness, NOT hugeness, enormousness, immenseness.

That should impress ’em.

Looking up one quotation led to another. I should probably apply a remark by the greatest of all American presidents, Abraham Lincoln. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

I guess presidential trivia is in the air. A trivia question at Curves last week:

Who was the first president to visit all 50 states?

One of my favorite Calvin Coolidge anecdotes (probably my only):

A young woman, possibly Dorothy Parker, was seated next to the taciturn president at a dinner party and reportedly said, “I made a bet with my husband that I can get you to say more than two words.”

After only the briefest pause, Coolidge replied: “You lose.”

Herbert Hoover is credited with this comment on the national economy:

“About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.”

Jimmy Carter tells a story about a joke he thinks he told a group of Japanese businessmen lunching in Tokyo. He told the anecdote and waited for the translator to repeat it in Japanese.

The joke was very short, and he was amazed at how quickly the lunch crowd responded. Although it was a cute story, it was not as hilarious as their reaction seemed to make it.

Afterwards, Carter sought out the translator to ask him how he told the joke to get such an uproarious reaction.

The translator said, “I told them, ‘President Carter has told a very funny joke. Please laugh now.’”

And “momentous” does describe the events of the past two weeks, whether or not you voted for Obama:

“Of utmost importance; of outstanding significance or consequence: a momentous occasion; a momentous decision.”