Ford's Hometown Tribute

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IT'S NOT TOO often that a former president passes away and his city prepares for his final homecoming. It's also not too often that there's zero snow cover in Grand Rapids, Mich., in late December. But even if a particularly nasty lake-effect snow band would have rolled into Gerald R. Ford's hometown this morning, Ford's faithful admirers would have showed up to pay their respects. And they will continue to show up as Ford's presidential museum center in the hours and days to come.

Earlier in the day, this writer interviewed a number of visitors to the Ford museum and asked them about the late president, what he meant to them and what he meant to Grand Rapids. Many brought their children to experience what many said was a historic event.

In our examination of the items left behind at the museum, we did not see Rudyard Kipling poem "If." But the poem, which the future president's mother made him recite as a child, is perhaps one of the most fitting memorials to Ford.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

A full audio interview, posted on washingtonpost.com, is available here.

Photo by Michael Grass/Express