Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Gerald R. Ford......

.....finally laid to rest in the spot he chose on a slight grassy hill with the river flowing by below outside the Gerald R. Ford Museum. It is a pretty site with some historical significance of its own. I believe they said it was originally the site of an Indian burial ground.

Quite a lot of excitement for the city of Grand Rapids! In yesterday's post I mentioned something about airplane sounds reverberating in the air. I have since found out what they were and what they were doing. They were the 21 jet airplanes practicing the fly by they were to preform at the close of the graveside service. They were back in full force this morning before the funeral began. The events today were running behind somewhat and the jets were in place, but because of the delay had to circle the area above our home and the nearby city of Wayland to the south of us. They even had to have a refueling plane in the air here to refuel the planes since they had to circle for such a long period of time. The sound of planes overhead is a bit unsettling to say the least. I think we are very fortunate to not have been in a war zone......I know the noise would have eventually gotten on my nerves if I had to live that way on a long term basis.

It was pretty awesome to see them all in the air though....in spite of the noise!

The Gerald R. Ford Museum is a building that hubby worked on with his ex-late father-in-law. His ex-late father-in-law was the general contractor for the construction of this building/museum and hubby worked for him at the time. The last job hubby did in this building was to vacuum the entire building and dust it so the occupants could smoothly move in.

5 comments:

chesneygirl said...

That's so cool...to "somewhat" experience a part of history in the making!

I'm think I'm a little bit jealous! ;)

Tracy said...

Glad things are starting to calm down over there. I watched some of the ceremony on the TV yesturday. The part that made me cry was when they gave Mrs Ford the American Flag off of his coffin. She cried and that was it for me. How sad, to lose the love of your life. I am thankful everyday for my love. He may be crabby right now, but I wouldn't take a day without him in it. Thanks for posting some history!

clew said...

It's cool to learn that your hubby was part of the construction of that museum. Interesting!

Miss ya ~

Rebecca said...

Isnt it amazing how much impact one person can have on so many lives. And we didn't even know him personally.

Now take that concept and think about how much we all impact other people without us even knowing it.

I think you're absolutely correct in thinking that Mrs. Ford probably just wants to put this all behind her. And truly, she's at the age where she's seriously just waiting for when she can be with him again....

Happy New Year!
Hugs -
And please tell Naive I said I'm thinking of her!

Anonymous said...

That's awesome to be that close to history. I bet hubby has fond memories of his construction days at the museum.