Here’s the thing about William Henry Harrison. He didn’t stick around too long. At least, not in the Oval Office. Of course, we know him as the 9th President of the United States. And he was a senator from Ohio although he wasn’t born in these parts. He hailed from Virginia.
Anyway, there are a couple of notable items about his presidency. First, he took office on March 4, 1841. On that particular day, he was 68 years and 23 days old. And that made him the oldest president to take office until Ronald Reagan.
Secondly, he had been portrayed in the news as a “backwoods” kind of guy, for a few different reasons. But, he didn’t like that portrayal of himself. He wanted to show the world that he was still more of the “hero” type from his military days. We’ll get to those in a minute.
As such, that strapping “hero” of a president, decided to be a real tough guy on his inauguration day. He took the oath of office on a very cold and very wet day. Yes, good old Will braved the cold weather. He chose not to wear an overcoat or a hat. That’s tough, I’ll tell you.
There’s more. He rode on horseback to the ceremony rather than in the closed carriage that had been offered him. Tough, tough. And then, the kicker of the chilly willy celebration? He delivered the longest inaugural address in American history. Oh yes he did. It clocked in at 8,445 words, and that beast of a speech took him nearly two hours to read.
He doesn’t stop there with the tough guy routine. William then rode through the streets in the inaugural parade, which was still cold and wet. He attended three inaugural balls that evening. A party guy on top of everything else.
When it was all said and done? He started feeling sick. Then, he got really sick. And, just 32 days after taking office, he was as dead as a door nail. You can be as tough as nails too. But this time, he was a dead one.
But let’s back up to his military career. He became truly famous when he led US forces against Native Americans at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. That’s how he got his nickname “Old Tippecanoe.” He pushed Tecumseh, and tried to intimidate the Shawnee, which eventually led to battle. Harrison scored the victory. Yes, he made a point of kicking native people off their land and then killing them.
So. There you have it. I wanted to let you know that today was his birthday. An Aquarius. Which are typically nice people.
There’s something else I want to bring up, and that is Karma. I know a lot of people throw the term around loosely. I don’t generally joke about it, and I certainly cannot speak to how it works. I do not understand Karma one little bit.
Oh. I know the theory of it. That old, “What goes around, comes around.” It just doesn’t seem to got that way a lot of times. And I don’t like to say it out loud, because I have no right to judge others.
However, there are certain stories in history where one can stand back and see the grand unfolding of the events. Where bad things end up happening to bad people. And you have to wonder about the workings of Karma.
On the flip side of that? A lot of bad things happen to a lot of really good people, and you have to wonder about that, too.
One thing is certain. Life can be a sticky wicket. I keep trying to understand how it all works.
Yet, in the swirl of it all, there’s one thing I think is right, and that is doing the next right thing. I’m going to do my best to make good choices. All day long.
I’ll leave the tough guy acts to someone else.
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“In the end that was the choice you made, and it doesn’t matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
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“We are our choices.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre
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“It is not for me to judge another man’s life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
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