Well, Bless Me

50 Stories for 50 Years — Post 33

It’s football season, and Navy football holds many memories for me. One of them involves a president.

In the early 1950s, my father, Frank Andrews, was the commissioning commanding officer of the USS Barracuda (SSK-1), a small experimental anti-submarine warfare submarine. His engineering officer was a young Jimmy Carter. They shared a wardroom.

In 1976, the bicentennial year, I campaigned for Carter while still in high school. I was a first-time voter with matching enthusiasm. It was personal as much as it was political. I knew he had served under my father, and that gave his talk of honesty and decency in leadership a particular weight.

A year later I was a plebe at the Naval Academy. Navy was playing Georgia Tech, both schools President Carter had attended. We were winning comfortably when an announcement came over the loudspeaker at halftime. The President had pardoned every midshipman holding demerits.

The Brigade roared. It went on for minutes. The game became almost an afterthought.

Early in the fourth quarter, I wandered toward the exit and noticed a cordoned-off pathway. I figured it was for the President and First Lady’s departure. I joined the handful of people standing there. When the final cannon sounded, the crowd along the front row grew.

The Carters came through. The President worked the line, shaking outstretched hands. He shook mine and moved on.

I called out. “Frank Andrews, Mr. President! Do you remember Frank Andrews?”

He stopped. He came back toward me, his face lighting up. “Of course I remember Frank Andrews,” he said.

“I’m Frank Andrews’ daughter, sir.” It was all I could manage.

“Well, bless me.”

He kissed me on the cheek. “I’d like for you to meet my wife Rosalynn.” But the crowd pressed in, and his security moved him forward.

I walked back to the hall, awestruck.

In every company area, a large chalkboard carries the plan of the day. At the bottom, in big letters, someone had written: “Mary Andrews was kissed by the President.”

Below it, in smaller print, someone else had added, in classic cynical mid humor: “And she is now in Bethesda Hospital.”

I never learned how the news beat me back to the hall.

An ordinary game day. A sitting Commander-in-Chief. It all started when one name was said out loud.

Whose name do you carry into a room? Say it. You may be surprised who remembers.