Karl Schumache/Reuters
U.S. President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford on the closing night of the Republican National Convention, in Kansas City, Missouri, August 19, 1976.
The following story about Gerald Ford, the 38th US president, is one of Abrams' favorites from the book.
Throughout his twenty-five years in the U.S. House of Representatives, nine months as vice president, and 896 days in the White House, Gerald R. Ford was as accommodating as they come.
Ford asked that the nation refer to 1600 Penn as "the residence" rather than its more traditional and intimidating handle, "the Executive Mansion."
"He was a friend to everyone who met him," Kansas senator Bob Dole said of his 1976 running mate. "He had no enemies."
His modesty and kindness inspired loyalty from several members of the news media, especially those who knew him before a disgraced Nixon left office, and Ford's so-called accidental presidency went into effect.
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This story comes from "Party Like a President" by Brian Abrams and John Mathias.
Prior to assuming the top spot, he had less than one year under his belt as Tricky Dick's veep and was appointed to the position of vice president, mind you, not elected.
Ford was never voted into high office, yet his relatable image and bipartisan alliances reestablished confidence in the federal government after Watergate. Good times were well-documented along the way.
"He was the only fun president that I ever met," New York Times Washington correspondent John Herbers said. "He was more intimate than any of the others."
One morning, upon his arrival at Salzburg Airport in Austria, the former University of Michigan football star famously tumbled down the stairs of Air Force One.
Another time, on a golf course in Palm Springs, California, Ford drove an electric cart into the side of a shack. ("I'm just one big clumsy sonofab---," he told Secret Service agent Dennis Chomicki.)
The media ate it up. Press secretary Ron Nessen explained how, during Ford's vacation ski trips, TV crews would station themselves on the more challenging slopes and turns in gleeful anticipation of his next pratfall.
One slapstick stunt, however, remained off the record for decades.
In 1974, the president spent his first Christmas break in Vail, Colorado, where for the better part of two weeks he congregated with family and esteemed locals. On Sunday, December 30, members of the press corps invited the world leader to a holiday reunion at their rented condo, a no-frills cocktail hour for the chief and the correspondents who had trailed him since Agnew stepped down.
Upon his arrival at No. 3J at the Village Center apartments, Ford "made a bee-line for the kitchen," according to reporter Thomas DeFrank's memoir "Write It When I'm Gone, " asking, "Who needs a drink?" With martini in hand, the president puffed his tobacco pipe among friends and melted into the couch for a half hour. (He and his wife, the world-famous alcoholic Betty, were scheduled for a dinner with the owner of a ski equipment company.)
Ford was so comfortable and off his guard, DeFrank observed, that the president set his "loafer dead in the center of a two-pound wheel of brie on the coffee table ... As he stood up, the cheese stuck to the bottom of his shoe for a heart-stopping instant-before quietly plopping back onto the plate. He never knew."
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From Party Like A President, written by Brian Abrams, Illus. by John Mathias (Workman Publishing).