My brother is a presidential scholar. I almost typed “amateur presidential scholar.” I’m not sure if he has been paid to academically study the presidents and their legacies. But I do know that we crushed one night at a Pub Trivia thanks to a category called “Presidents and Their Vices… Vice Presidents That Is.” It was a presidential trivia massacre and thankfully I was on the winning side… to the tune of $35 in gift certificates for the next time we drank and played. So if I were under oath I think I would have to answer that verily Steve (and by extension I) profited from his presidential scholarship; I would say that I think by Webster’s definition that makes him a PROFESSIONAL presidential scholar.
That’s all prelude and minutiae to explain why I wasn’t surprised to find a yellowed and brittle newspaper from April 13, 1945. Sealed in a plastic zip lock bag, it was the front page on the day FDR died and Harry Truman assumed the mantle of the presidency. Amongst the prose, the four-time president’s final words: “I have a terrific headache.”
I found this appropriate because I have a terrible headache. It’s not terrific so I assume I’m not verging on the brink of death. But it is debilitating. Been lingering for days now, off and on yet mostly on. And this morning when my alarm radar’d to get me up and out the door for my run, I just couldn’t do it. It’s not a tumor I assume from my movie going habits.
And while googling “headache tumor” yielded the typically worst-case scenario rabbit hole of symptoms and harbingers of death, by simply adding the word “movie” to the search I was rewarded with this top result:
Still, it hurts like a thousand pins stuck willy nilly into my forehead. And I’m just so dang exhausted and tired. I tried sorting through some details of the day, plans for car services and home alarm company meetups because a number of things have gone wrong on the road and at the homestead. And every action has yielded frustrations and stress that have only exacerbated the pain in my head.
I haven’t gone for a run. I don’t think I can. And according to Doctor Google if I’m reading the results right that means I’m probably dying.
I have a truly non-terrific, terrible headache.
And speaking third personly, Kevin just can’t run, Kevin. Kevin just can’t run.
