First Post

I never thought I would write a blog. Blogs are for chumps - those who think that everyone wants their opinion on everything, or thinks that random people care about what they say.

However, I have been thinking recently about family. I have a hard time remembering stories about my parents from when they were young. Either they tell me and I forget, or they just aren't very forthcoming about it.

I have a fear that one day my children won't know how I was, what shaped me and how I became the father (of the year probably) that I will be.

So in talking with my wife one day, she said 'Start a blog about your presidential biography thing,'. I thought that was foolish (see first paragraph), but then came around to the idea so that there is a record of me for them to see - who I was, and how I wrote, just like a lot of the American Presidents did with their writings - keeping and editing them with a critical eye for how they wanted future generations to perceive them.

So here goes:

Junior year of college I was lent Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin and loved it. I was then recommended John Adams by David McCullogh and thoroughly enjoyed that as well. Since I was already 2/44 of the way done, I decided that it should be a lifelong goal of mine to read a biography about every president.

I set some standards for the project, no autobiographies, no biography shorter than 300 pages, and the biography had to have come out at least 30 years after the presidents passing. I wanted as objective a view on their life and presidency as possible.

Since then I expanded the goal slightly to include reading books on the American Wars that each president was involved in around the same time that I read the biography of the president e.g. before reading James Madison, I read a book on the war of 1812.

I expanded my goal even more in the past year to include all those who were presidents on American Soil, but not in the white house. I recently read a Sam Houston biography (President of the Republic of Texas), and I am in the middle of reading a biography about Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederate States of America).

This blog will be a place where I can put my thoughts down as I read these books so that I leave an imprint somewhere about how I feel and maybe a little about who I am for future generations (probably just my own - who else would care?).

Sadly, I cannot put my thoughts down about the Presidents that I have read up to this point since I do not own a time machine (yet).