Daniel D. Thompkins, RIP

The inclination to post is ebbing with the approach of Thanksgiving, and so is the time available. Not that preparing for the holiday is that taxing. But it can be hard to do enough work ahead of time so that you don’t have to do much work later.

I’ll pick up again after Lilly’s birthday and Thanksgiving, because those days are dead head on the calendar in rapid succession. Till then, a few stray comments:

Ann came up to me the other day, and said, “I want a zip code.” Count on a three-year-old to make Zippy-esque statements, and be a little sorry to see that fade away as the child gets older.

For all I know, Pixel Chix are also advertised on TV. But I believe Lilly learned about them on the Internet, which has to be characteristic of our time. “I’m a 2D girl in a 3D world” is the tag line, and for once such a thing is highly accurate. The device is made up of a very small dollhouse (the 3D part) “occupied” by a video-game-like figure (the 2D creature) on a transparent scene in front of the dollhouse, so that it looks like she lives there. You interact with it via buttons on the front of the house. Lilly got one a few days early for her 9th birthday, so giddy about the prospect I thought she was going to pop.

I noticed in small news reports that over the weekend that Gerald Ford, 93, became the oldest US president, besting Ronald Reagan, who a few years ago outlasted long-time presidential longevity record-holder John Adams, who famously died at age 90 on the same day as Thomas Jefferson (who was 83). My brother Jay e-mailed me this week: “I understand that Gerald Ford passed Ronald Reagan on the 12th of November to become the longest-lived President, but he's still got several years to go to pass Levi P. Morton and John Nance Garner. I don't have time to look just now; are there any other Vice Presidents who lasted longer than Ford?”

A question worthy of someone who owns the somewhat dated but still amazing Presidential Fact Book. I answered: “Ford is indeed now #3 among vice presidents, with Levi P. Morton surviving to 96 and John Nance Garner to a few days short of 99. John Adams is now #4 at 90. No other VPs have lived to be 90 or more. Harry Truman nearly made it to 89, coming in at #5. The shortest-lived VP seems to be Daniel D. Thompkins, who died at 50.” Poor old Daniel D., who was James Monroe’s veep. Left office in 1825 and almost immediately kicked the bucket.