Harry S Truman
Born: May 8, 1884
Died: December 26, 1972
Term in Office: 1945-1953
"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." These words are attributed to the 33rd President of these States as he reprimanded a staffer who complained about the frenetic work pace of the then-Senator from Missouri in the early 1940s.
It sounds folksy enough to be from the Midwest farm boy; something he may have heard from his grandma as she chased him out of her kitchen, his hands clutching some tasty oatmeal cookies fresh from the oven.
We won't talk about how he took the kitchen to Japan in the last month of the Second World War and gave that country the heat of two atomic bombs. We'll leave it for others to debate if those bombings actually saved lives on both sides of the War or not. (But we have lived with the dread of nuclear holocaust ever since.)
No, I'm gonna spend these few lines discussing a much more trivial subject in regard to this guy... namely the 'S' in his name. I have opted not to show a period after the 'S' in the heading above, as that is his actual middle name: just 'S;' it's not an initial. His folks argued over honoring his paternal grandpa, whose middle name was Shipp, or Solomon, for his maternal counterpart. So they settled on 'S' for Harry's middle moniker.
The story goes that when he was being sworn in as president following FDR's death, the Justice prompted him with, "I, Harry Shipp Truman..." to which Truman responded, "I, Harry S Truman...".
I like the story of how, when he was raising money for his Presidential Library in the mid-50s in Eugene, Oregon, the Swinomish Indian tribe gave him 'Swinomish' to use in that middle spot. I like it... Harry Swinomish Truman. Nice ring.
Peace to all, and remember to keep your kitchens habitable.
Thanks to www.wikipedia.org and www.prologue.blogs.archives.gov for some tidbits referred to herein.
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