Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   6

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156
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
Millard Fillmore
 had a historic audience with the pope 
shortly before being nominated for president on a violently 
anti-Catholic ticket.
Franklin Pierce
 was pals with author Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
In fact, the two were vacationing together in the White 
Mountains when Hawthorne died in his sleep.
James Buchanan
 had one eye set higher in his head than the 
other, so he walked around with his neck cocked to one side.
Abraham Lincoln
 had a twangy high-pitched voice—nothing 
at all like Sam Waterston’s.
Andrew Johnson
 loved the circus.
Ulysses S. Grant
 changed his name from Hiram Ulysses be-
cause he was ashamed of the initials H.U.G. Also, he hated 
music. All music.
Rutherford B. Hayes
 was a huge fan of croquet.
James A. Garfield,
 a former classics teacher, could simulta-
neously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other.
Chester A. Arthur
 had over 80 pairs of pants and insisted on 
changing several times a day.
Grover Cleveland
 had a prosthetic jaw and an illegitimate 
daughter, neither of which seriously aff ected his popularity. 
He’s also the only president to have been elected to two non-
consecutive terms.
Benjamin Harrison
 had the fi rst electric lights in the White 
House, but was scared to turn them on or off  for fear of elec-
trocution. Instead, he made the servants do it.
William McKinley’s
 wife was an epileptic whose contorted 
face he sometimes covered up with a handkerchief during 
formal dinner parties.

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157
Theodore Roosevelt’s
 mother and fi rst wife died on the same 
day, in the same house, on the fourth anniversary of his en-
gagement, which was also Valentine’s Day. Rough.
As president, 
William Howard Taft
 weighed 326 pounds and 
got stuck in the White House bathtub. He had a bigger one 
installed.
Woodrow Wilson
 was a gifted mimic fond of telling racist 
jokes in Irish dialect. He also liked to imitate drunks.
Warren G. Harding
 kept his romantic trysts in the closet—
literally. He often met his mistress in a closet off  the presi-
dential offi
  ce.
Calvin Coolidge,
 while president, enjoyed riding on a me-
chanical horse and whooping like a cowboy. He also thought it 
was great fun to hit the buzzer for the servants and then hide.
Herbert Hoover
 and his wife were both profi cient in Chinese 
and would often use it to talk privately in the presence of 
guests.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
 had a collection of over 25,000 stamps. 
He added to it by simply having the Postmaster General and 
State Department mail him every new issue.
Harry S Truman
 once wrote a threatening letter to the music 
critic of the 
Washington Post
 in response to a negative review 
of his daughter’s voice recital, stating “I never met you, but if 
I do, you’ll need a new nose. . . .” His entire middle name, inci-
dentally, was S.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
 hated cats. In retirement in Gettys-
burg, Pennsylvania, he enjoyed shooting at any that came 
near his house.
John F. Kennedy
 only watched the fi rst halves of movies. 
Th
  en he’d get bored.