I'm So Lonely

Gerry's Corner: As you may all know, once you're elected president, you're never really alone for the rest of your life. You've always got family and friends and Secret Service detail and well-wishers - I even had a pair of would-be assassins during my term in office! Also-ran presidential candidates are less fortunate: Dukakis can walk down pretty much any street outside Boston unmolested.

All the same, though, it can feel pretty lonely to be me. By way of example, there's a public policy school named after me at my alma mater. (I don't know how to say this, exactly, but I'm kind of a big deal. People know me.) I'd wanted the football stadium, but they wouldn't do that, even for me (what do I have to do, be president of the moon or something???). So there's a Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy in Ann Arbor, and they just moved into a big new building - it's getting dedicated next month, and I'm supposed to show up, make an appearance, wave to my adoring fans, etc. Well, I just got sent the script that the student tour guides will be using to take people around the new building, and I'm kind of disappointed.

The building's not named after me.
No classrooms are named after me.
There's not even a bathroom named after me.

Oh, my wife got her name on a classroom - the one that "seats nearly 100 in auditorium style seating" and features "state of the art AV capabilities, including video conferencing." But me? I'm just an old man that no one bothered to name anything after. I feel used - I feel like they named the school after me so they could impress enough potential donors to give money and then forget about me.

Plus, all the other former presidents declined to come to the building dedication, ostracizing me even more. I feel like an unelected man in a sea of elected peers. Literally - I'm drowning in an ocean of misery and self-pity. I remember back when I went to the opening of Clinton's library, and we were all sitting there in a row - me and Carter and the elder Bush and whoever else was still alive (Nixon? Humphrey?), and we were talking about our own libraries. I mentioned that mine was at the University of Michigan, and Carter especially gave me this look that spoke absolute volumes. I heard Bush lean over to Jimmy and whisper, "I hear they didn't even put it on the main campus," and Jimmy whispered back, "Not like we'll ever have to go there." Well, I happen to like my little library on the north campus; it's cozy and homey and there's no awkward section that has to explain some bizarre scandal like Iran-Contra or Monica Lewinsky, because I didn't have any of those times in my presidency. I was all about consistency, but does anyone appreciate, or even recognize, that? Noooooo. So, I feel a little alone today, down on myself and on my place. Hopefully, if I just keep plugging, things will get better.

At least I have For Better or For Worse to cheer me up. No matter how bad I feel, I know my life can't be as tough as Elizabeth Patterson's: she's now living at home, maintaining a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend, the constable, and you just know that's not going to work out. Meanwhile, she has to testify against this guy who tried to assault her last year, all while being 'supported' by Anthony, her old high-school flame, who is so totally not a hottie. Why doesn't anyone in the comic strip realize this?? Am I the only one who knows that Anthony is pathetic? Check out what I mean:



Things will get better. I'm crossing my fingers for a good day.

There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,
Gerry