THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601300470
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 232 lines
FEB. 15, 1923, fell on a Thursday.
So did March 7, 1991.
June 12, 1924 - that was a Thursday, too.
That may mean little to the average citizen, Thursdays being as common as they are. But those dates - and that day of the week - hold great weight for George Brooks.
``I'm one year older than President Bush,'' the Portsmouth retiree says. ``He's named George, and I'm named George, and a funny thing - he was born on a Thursday, and I was born on a Thursday.
``He's the only president I've ever met personally. And we met on a Thursday.''
Brooks, 72, is an expert on all dates presidential. In more than 35 years of study he has memorized an almanac's worth of days and times of note in White House history.
His expertise is sharply focused. He does not fancy himself a historian, can't discuss the policies of past presidents, knows little of their campaign tactics or the slogans that propelled them to office.
Ask him how many days Millard Fillmore served as the nation's executive, however, and he'll give you the answer. Ask him when the seven vice presidents who have died in office did so, and he'll not hesitate. His specialty isn't the web of history, but the points at which its threads intersect - birthdays, wedding days, election dates. Dates of electoral victory and defeat, of children's births and presidents' deaths.
``We've had only three presidents who were born in the 20th century who have already died, and that was Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon,'' Brooks says. ``All three of them died on the same day of the month - on the 22nd. They didn't die in the same months, but they all died on the same day of the month.
``Let me tell you something about Warren Harding.'' Brooks leans over his kitchen table, which is littered with spiral notebooks crammed with carefully lettered trivia. ``He is the only president who was elected president on his birthday. He was the first president who women put into office, because that was the first president elected after women got the right to vote.
``And,'' he says, leaning back in his chair, ``he was born on the second of the month, and he died on the second of the month.''
Walls of the apartment Brooks shares with his wife, Rachel, are crowded with pictures: A large oil of a matador staving off a charging bull, an aged, grainy portrait of Rachel's father in top hat and tux, photographs of the couple's children and grandchildren.
Two others capture Brooks, Rachel and President George Bush meeting in the White House on Thursday, March 7, 1991.
``He's a nice guy,'' Brooks says, regarding the pictures. ``My wife dropped her earring and he picked it up.
``You know, President Bush is the only man who served as president born in the month of June. Weren't no president born in the month of June but George Herbert Walker Bush.
``I'll tell you something else about George Bush that I like about him, that makes me proud about George Bush: He and John Adams are the only incumbent vice presidents to serve two terms, then be elected president.''
Brooks smiles. ``I'll tell you something else. Both George Bush and George Washington married their wives on Jan. 6,'' he says. ``I need to do some more studying of it, because I'm not sure, but Barbara Bush, she might be related to President Franklin Pierce.''
Her maiden name is Pierce, and she's a New Yorker. The 14th president was born in New Hampshire. ``It's a thought,'' he shrugs. ``No proof. But who knows? It might click.''
Brooks scarcely takes a breath before adding that Pierce is the only president to have taken the oath of office using the words ``I affirm'' in place of ``I do solemnly swear.''
``Bill Clinton's name,'' he says, forging ahead, ``he got that when his stepfather adopted him on June 12, 1962, when he was near his 16th birthday. That was future President George Bush's birthday. June 12. Future President George Bush was 38 years old on that day.
``That's a coincidence, ain't it?''
He leans forward again, jabs the air with a huge finger. ``I'll tell you something else that happened on that date - June 12 - that we don't like to think about: O.J. Simpson was accused of killing that girl on June 12.
``On President Bush's 70th birthday.''
He is an unlikely repository for such a wealth of presidential fact. Born on Thursday, Feb. 15, 1923, in Sulada, S.C., Brooks moved north to D.C. with his family at 4, dropped out of school in the eighth grade, and took up boxing in the Army during World War II.
He seemed a natural - a big, scowling, square-shouldered young man with wicked reach and mammoth hands. Back home after tours in Europe and the Pacific, he turned professional.
Harry Truman was in the White House, but Brooks might not have noticed. He was busy, working as a nurse's aide at a Washington hospital and sparring by night with the likes of Joe Louis and Jersey Joe Walcott. He won his first few bouts without breaking a sweat.
It didn't last. ``I didn't train like I should,'' he says. ``I won a whole lot of fights, but it went to my head and I started messing up.'' By the time he quit fighting, his record was an uninspiring 22-16.
In the meantime, he found his calling. In the 1950s he began watching a popular television game show, ``The $64,000 Question,'' and in hopes of landing a spot as a contestant began devouring little-known trivia about the presidents.
He learned that Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton on the birthday of John Quincy Adams, the nation's sixth president. That John Quincy Adams' wife was the only foreign-born First Lady. That John Quincy Adams was president while four ex-presidents were still living.
He began jotting down his discoveries. That Martin Van Buren was the only incumbent Democratic vice president elected president. That Woodrow Wilson's second wife survived him by 37 years, 10 months and 25 days, and died on the anniversary of his birthday.
``Dig this. James Buchanan was a Democrat, right? Back in 1856 he run against John C. Fremont,'' Brooks says. ``That was the first time in history that the Republicans and the Democratic party run against each other.''
One notebook filled quickly. He started another. ``Everybody started calling me `Mr. President,' '' he says. ``A lot of people, they're well-educated, and they could answer questions I could never answer. But when they got to presidents, that's when I could get right on up there with them.''
Before long, Washington grade schools started inviting Brooks to speak. He'd tell pupils about the losing Republican ticket of 1940, whose standard-bearers died before the end of the term for which they sought election.
It didn't matter that the television people never called. Brooks would stand in front of those children, tall and hard, his boxer's physique intact, and mesmerize. He'd mention that Dwight Eisenhower was the last president born in the 19th century. That William Henry Harrison was the first president to die in office. That long after John Tyler ended his presidency, he renounced his country and won a seat on the Confederate Congress.
The Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter presidencies passed. Brooks retired from the hospital, spent a year working in a White House canteen during Ronald Reagan's first term, and fought off throat cancer during Reagan's second. Through it all, he filled new notebooks.
Inevitably, he developed favorites. ``I like Richard Nixon,'' he says. ``I look at Nixon this way: Nixon was a politician, and a good one. He was a good guy for peace who could talk to different countries.''
Watergate, Brooks says, made Nixon no worse than many presidents before him. ``He was trying to get re-elected,'' he says. ``I don't care what nobody says - you might tell me to go to hell - but we won't ever have a perfect president.
``Sometimes you get in a predicament sometimes, and you're going to do wrong. The devil will get you all kinds of ways.
``It's like with Clinton, and these women. If a man sees a woman and she's looking good, he'll probably want to do it. It's easy to point your finger. Those people trying to put something dirty on him probably dirty themselves, but they want to put the dirt on him.
``That can happen to anybody,'' he says. ``Adam and Eve were the first peoples on earth, and the devil got to them. A woman can get a man to do a lot of things, and it's been happening ever since.''
Rachel, ``the only woman who could tame me,'' accompanied Brooks to the White House to meet Bush on a day that remains one of the couple's proudest.
They passed Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf on their way into the Oval Office. Bush, who'd heard about Brooks' knack for trivia from an aide, asked how he'd started his pastime. Brooks told him about the TV show, adding: ``These presidents, I love 'em.''
The president turned his attention to Rachel. ``He did look a little better than he did on TV,'' she says. ``I said, `Oh, Mr. President, you're so handsome.' ''
``I went up to see President George Bush,'' Brooks says, shaking his head, ``and he spent more time talking to my wife than he did to me.''
Two years ago, the Brookses moved to Hampton Roads. By then there were dozens of notebooks. Half the days of the calendar held a significance that George Brooks could recite from a memory tangled with facts.
Still, there were more notes to take. More curious happenstance to record. Like figuring out which month had seen the greatest number of presidential births. The fact that John Adams was sworn in as vice president days before George Washington was sworn in as president.
And, on this afternoon, as Brooks sits at his kitchen table, yet another new tidbit. ``Who was the first president,'' he is asked, ``born west of the Mississippi?''
Brooks thinks for a moment, then reaches for a reference book.
The answer: Herbert Hoover, our wildly unpopular 31st president.
Born in Iowa on Aug. 10, 1874.
Died Oct. 20, 1964.
One of only two presidents to see his 90th birthday.
And he was inaugurated at age 54, just like Van Buren, William McKinley and Rutherford B. Hayes.
Speaking of Hayes, the ``B'' stood for Birchard, and he was born on Oct. 4, 1822.
The same day President Andrew Johnson's future wife turned 12 years old. . MEMO: SCORING: 1-3 correct _ Your citizenship is hereby revoked. 4-7 correct _
Avoid a ``Jeopardy'' appearance. 8-10 correct _ Wow. Hail to you,
Chief. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JIM WALKER/The Virginian-Pilot
Graphics
PRESIDENTIAL QUIZ
Think you're a match for George Brooks? Take a shot at the
following questions. They'd be a snap for him. (Answers below.)
1. Who was president when South Carolina seceded from the Union
on Dec. 20, 1860?
2. Who was the only elected president born in the 20th century
who was younger than his wife?
3. How many presidents died in the 18th century?
4. Which presidential contender received the greatest number of
electoral votes? Which won election by the widest electoral margin?
5. Who was the first president to fly in an airplane, ride in a
car and submerge in a submarine?
6. Who was Abraham Lincoln's first vice president?
7. Four presidents lived 20 or more years after leaving office.
Who were they?
8. Which president's wife and mother died on the same day?
9. How many 20th century presidents have lost re-election bids?
10. In 1948, the election many remember for its ``Dewey beats
Truman'' headline, a third candidate won 39 electoral votes on a
pro-segregation platform. Who was he? What was his party called?
PRESIDENTIAL QUIZ ANSWERS
(Quiz on Page K5)
1. James Buchanan, president from 1857 to 1861
2. Richard Nixon, 1969-1974
3. Just one - George Washington
4. Incumbent Ronald Reagan received the greatest number of
electoral votes when he defeated Walter Mondale, 525 votes to 13, in
1984. Incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt won by the widest margin - 523
to 8 - when he whipped Alfred Landon in 1936.
5. Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909.
6. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, 1861-1865
7. John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore and Herbert
Hoover.
8. Theodore Roosevelt's.
9. Four. Incumbent William Howard Taft lost to Woodrow Wilson in
1912; Hoover lost to FDR in 1932; Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan
in 1980; and George Bush lost to Bill Clinton in 1992. Readers may
argue that the list should include Gerald Ford, who lost to Carter
in 1976. Note, however, that we're looking for unsuccessful
re-election bids; Ford wasn't elected.
10. Strom Thurmond, of the States' Rights Party.
by CNB