My very first blog

Today, April 27, 2009, I became a blogger. As a writer, I've always kept a plethora of journals, including private journals, prayer journals, gratitude journals, quotes from favorite book journals, etc. Blogging seemed like the next natural step.

BTW, thanks to precious Lizzy for the blog's name. That was her idea. :)

This morning at breakfast, Wayne and I were discussing the meaning of different words (something we often do, actually), and the word of the day was "prosaic." Before we fetched the dictionary, we each shared our own ideas of this word's meaning and my definition was nearest right, to which Wayne said, "You get a Dewey button."

I had to ask him to repeat this comment, as I had no idea what he was talking about. He added, "that's what the old folks back home used to say, 'You get a Dewey Button.'" And the he laughed out loud. Something about that phrase tickled him greatly.

"Back home" for Wayne is the beautiful mountains of West Virginia.

After breakfast, I had to look up Dewey. All I could remember was that he was a presidential candidate many decades ago.

Turns out that Thomas E. Dewey was the Republican candidate in the 1948 presidential election against Harry S. Truman. Pre-election polling showed that Dewey was leading by double digits. In the wee hours of the morning after election day, The Chicago Tribune called the election for Dewey, and put their prediction in print, creating the now infamous headline that read, "Dewey Defeats Truman." Harry S. Truman, it turned out, won that election.

The 1948 election was Dewey's third (and last) shot at the presidency.

In 1940, Dewey sought the Republican party's bid for president but lost to Wendell Wilkie. Wilkie went up against FDRoosevelt. (Roosevelt, history buffs may recall, was the first president to throw open the doors to the US treasury and loudly proclaim, "Lookie here, there's plenty of money in here for EVERYONE!")

Four years later, Dewey won the Republican bid but lost the general election to Roosevelt (whom, history buffs may recall, was the president who repeatedly violated the constitution with his far-reaching and overreaching "new deal" enactments and stacked the supreme court and confiscated gold from private citizens and should have been impeached for his repeated acts of malfeasance).

On a lighter note, Alice Roosevelt Longworth (dilettante and eldest daughter of Teddy Roosevelt) quipped that Dewey was "The little man on the wedding cake" (a reference to his dapper appearance and thin little mustache). To Dewey's disdain, Alice's comment stuck like glue.

In 1948, Dewey again won the Republican bid for candidacy but (as is stated above) lost to Harry S. Truman, who was the last decent democratic president that we had in these United States.

So, how does that relate to Dewey Buttons? I'm not really sure. Perhaps back in the day, a Dewey Button had little value because that candidate never won in the general election for President. However now they're increasingly rare and a "Dewey for president" button fetches $25 and up.

I'll take a couple hundred.