Gerald Ford and his toaster

Gerald Ford shows off his English muffin-making skills in 1974.

Ford was an ordinary American; for the only man who assumed the nation’s highest office without being elected to the Presidency or the Vice-Presidency, it is an apt moniker. He lived in Northern Virginia and toasted his own English muffins before commuting to work in Washington. After the larger-than-life presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, America readily embraced this humble man.

When the press discovered that Gerald Ford continued to toast his own English muffins in the White House kitchen, buttered them himself, and served himself orange juice before he entered the Oval Office, it was the most heart-warming moment of Ford’s presidency. However, this ‘toasted-muffin phase’ of the Ford presidency ended abruptly on the Sunday morning that Ford issued a full pardon to Nixon.

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