After a dalliance with a potential 7am start time for Presidents’ Day, we decided to stick with 5:30 after all. We kicked it off with:

Warm Up
SSH
Good Morning
Willie Mays Hayes
Imperial Walker
Hillbilly
Arm Circles
Bitcoin Merkin x 8—We did 8 in honor of the 8th President, Martin Van Buren. Some fun MVB facts: he was the first President born in the United States, and the only President to learn English as a second language (the family spoke Dutch at home). I also Tweet as Martin Van Buren and have more than 2,800 followers (check out @martyvanburen).

The Thang

First we moseyed to the ledges in front of the parking deck. There the plan was to do sets of 20 step-ups, dips, erkins and derkins until someone named the 20th President. The PAX were not showing signs of correctly naming said president, even with the great hint that he attended my alma mater (Williams College) and was on his way to Williams when he was assassinated. The answer: James Garfield. He was succeeded by Chester Arthur.

Next we moseyed to the bottom of the hill. We noted that today’s date is 2/22/22, which is a palindrome. [Editor’s Note: I just know realized that today is actually 2/21. Oops!] Thus we did a Jacob’s Ladder, which is a palindromic exercise routine. We did 6 burpees at the bottom and 1 merkin at the top, then 5-2, 4-3, 3-4, 2-5 and 1-6. Aye!

Then we moseyed close to Cameron, where we did a series of exercises that we were able to stop only when someone got a trivia question right, or I was too tired from both the exercise and bemoaning our educational system for all of the inept guessing, whichever came first. The focus of this section was the five presidents who lost the popular vote but still won anyway. In chronological order, they are:

– 1824, John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson. Jackson won the popular vote but the election was decided by the House of Representatives, where Henry Clay swung the election to JQA and was later named Secretary of State, which was then considered the most prestigious position aside from President. Jackson’s supporters labeled that the “Corrupt Bargain,” which was their rallying cry when Jackson won in 1828 (and was re-elected in 1832).

– 1876, which was a total mess. Democrat Samuel Tilden won both the popular vote and the Electoral College, but four states sent in dueling slates of electors, so it was a stalemate. Eventually a 15-member committee decided the election, with The Compromise of 1877 giving the election to Rutherford B Hayes and the Republicans. In exchange, Republican troops left the South and Reconstruction ended, and (shamefully) the whites basically took back over in the South and promptly erased many of the rights that Blacks had gained after the Civil War.

– 1888, when Grover Cleveland earned the most votes while seeking re-election, but Benjamin Harrison won in the Electoral College. Undaunted, Cleveland ran again in 1892 and won, making him the only President to serve non-consecutive terms.

– 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote but George W Bush won in the Electoral College.

– 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but Donald Trump won in the Electoral College.

We had some other trivia questions. Such as:

– Who was the first President to throw out a first pitch at a baseball game? (Taft)

– Who is the only President who also served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? (Also Taft)

– Who was the only President to get stuck in a bathtub, because he was too fat? (Taft again)

– What president has had the longest marriage? (Jimmy Carter, and both he and his wife are still living. The previous record was George H.W. and Barbara Bush, who have since passed away.)

We also had some bonus trivia from last year. There are four pairs of Presidents and Super Bowl-winning QBs who went to the same college. Name them and the college.
– Tom Brady and Gerald Ford, Michigan
– Roger Staubach and Jimmy Carter, Naval Academy
– John Elway and Calvin Coolidge, Stanford
– Ben Roethlisberger and Benjamin Harrison, Miami of Ohio

For Mary, we did some X’s and O’s.

Prayers were offered for Yurt’s wife, who has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. We all send her and Yurt’s whole family our best.