Tag: Bill Clinton

On an Odd Propensity

There have been 14 Presidents of the United States of America since World War 2. Of those 14, six of them share a common characteristic that is also shared by around only 10% of the population of the world. What could that be, and why have so many presidents in recent decades shared this propensity?

Psychologists have argued that one reason for the high incidence among presidents is that having this characteristic causes one to have a wider scope of thinking, making them if not more effective as presidents, at least it could help explain why they are at least attractive as candidates. People who are like this tend to face challenges better and share an “outside the box” thinking ability. They tend to be able to generate ideas given a certain set of parameters better than the rest of us. I say “us” because I don’t fall into this category.

On the other hand, some researchers say it’s all down to chance and that this particular propensity has nothing to do with electability.

I’ll even provide the list for you so you can maybe see or decide what these six men have in common: Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barak Obama. If you’re wondering, that three Republicans and three Democrats, so it’s not party affiliation. It’s something else these six men share.

Well, obviously we’re talking about a physical characteristic to a degree. And that’s what researchers find so interesting, because scientists simply don’t know what causes it. Some studies say that this trait is connected to the development of speech and language, but nothing has been conclusive. Statistically, the 10% and the 90% differ in intelligence tests scores by a whopping 1 point. Left to their own devices, they tend to take tests faster than the 90% as well.

Interestingly, it has shown up to a higher degree in people who are really good at math (another reason I’m not in this group). Low birth weights seem to contribute to the likelihood as well as problems during childbirth. Higher cancer and depression rates occur, but they have lower rates of ulcers, arthritis, and even bone brittleness. And, we have to hand it to them; many people who are in symphony orchestras have a higher chance to be this way as do many pro athletes (tennis and baseball players, mostly).

Give up? Some clues were dropped in this essay, so you should’ve guessed it by now. What do six of the last 14 presidents have in common?

They were left handed.

On a Slick Salesman

Bill Blythe got around.

That was the understatement of the century. First of all, Bill was a traveling salesman. For the majority of this sales career, Bill sold heavy machinery to contractors and builders and even state and local governments. Even during the Great Depression, Bill had a knack for sweet talking his way past the secretaries and into face to face meetings with the decision-makers on those types of purchases. Once he got past the secretaries, he said, the big bosses were easy because the equipment pretty much sold itself. The hard part was convincing the secretaries to let him in. So, Bill was an excellent salesman.

Then, when he died in 1946, he left behind him five wives and a whole slew of children from one side of the United States to another. In fact, all five of his wives were women he met as he traveled cross-country on sales trips. As I said, Bill was smooth when it came to the women his travels brought into his path. He sold himself, his personality, the way he sold his sales goods. And by smooth I mean manipulative and deceptive and, well, as we used to say back in Alabama, slick. So, a slick salesman and a slick talker. For Bill, the two were inextricably linked.

One minor nit to pick here, minor at least for Bill if not the law, was that he often didn’t get divorced from the previous wife before he would marry the next one. He married his last wife, Virginia, while still married to wife number four, a woman named Wanetta. Oh, and in an era when several states still had laws on the books that forbade adultery, Bill fathered some of his kids with a couple of his ex-wives after their divorces. That’s a smooth talker for sure.

But his marriage to Virginia seemed to mark a turning point in his life. Well, to be fair, perhaps it was his service in World War 2 in the African and Italian Theaters of War repairing heavy equipment like the type he used to sell. Travel–and war–can change a man. Bill returned from service determined to finally settle down. He bought a house in Chicago and told Virginia that he would soon come get her after he finished his very next sales trip. Virginia was also excited; she was 6 months pregnant with their only child and longed for a quiet life ahead for the little family.

Sadly for all three of them, it was not to be. You see, Bill’s car rolled over on a lonely stretch of highway and Bill was thrown into a ditch. There was less than 2 feet of water in the ditch, and the injured man was not able to extricate himself rom the water. He drowned. He never met the son that would be born three months later. While the world doesn’t really know about the personality of the smooth-selling, fast-talking, charming Bill Blythe, they would certainly come to know his son.

Well, the apple, as they say, don’t fall far from the tree. Bill’s son, William J. Blythe, III, would later adopt the name of his mother’s next husband, the boy’s step-dad.

You know that young slick talker as Bill Clinton.