Silly American History Fact - Sleepy President（~，~）ZZzzzz
To set the scene... need a bit of back story to understand this one.
President Harding had been visiting Alaska to escape the pressures of his corrupt White House staff.
If you haven't read about them... the were a scandalous lot - including the President.
He started to feel ill so they (he and Mrs. Harding) stopped in San Francisco to rest and died there.
Speculation is rampant that Mrs. Harding poisoned him.
Due to his numerous affairs and out-of-wedlock child...
She absolutely refused to let the body to have an autopsy.
Hmm, interesting. As far as I remember, they still haven't exhumed the body.
I could be wrong, but the rumors of poisoning are still there.
Ok, so here is the best part.
When President Harding got sick, advisors told Vice President Calvin Coolidge that the President was fine.
SO he went to visit his father who lived in Vermont.
His father lived in a remote area and had no phone.
So when the President died, they had to send messengers out to notify Coolidge that he was now President.
They arrived late at night so Coolidge was already alseep.
He got up, had his father, a notary public, give him the presidential oath.... then went back to bed.
WTF????
I nearly dropped the book as Austin and I was reading this part....
I mean, you have your dad give you the oath of office then go back to bed????
What??? What kind of reaction is that? That man didn't deserve to be President!!!
Side note: I would have jumped up and down, ran around the house yelling
"Bwahahahah, I'm In Charge!!! All Hail Me! " lol - seriously...
Then danced a victory dance while I had someone make me breakfast,
pack my bag, and then been off to my pretty new house.
(Don't mind me - I'm an Aires, we live to be in charge and organize things.)
Ha ha ha. I'd be a great President!
Side note 2: You need to remember that the Prez & Vice Prez are rarely friends or have the same political philosophy.
Quite often, they hate each other. Sadly, this is still tends to be true.
But to continue the story... yes, it doesn't end there. I did call him the sleepy President.
The book we are reading says that President Coolidge required a lot of sleep.
He went to bed at 10 in the evening and got up around 7 in the morning.
But that wasn't enough sleep for him.
He would take a nap everyday that would last from 2-4 hours!!!!
Um, so when did he work you may ask???
He didn't - he was very lazy and basically was just "THERE" filling space.
No wonder the Great Depression was forming.
You went from a corrupt Presidential staff to a do-nothing President. Wow.