A president who serves cake

When a former president of the United States offers you a piece of his birthday cake, you really can't say "no." Oddly, that's what comes to mind first when I think of President Gerald Ford.

Known as Jerry Ford in the informal surroundings of a ski town, the president and I crossed paths a number of times during the late 1980s, when I worked in the Colorado mountains. An avid skier, Ford and his wife, Betty, owned a second home in the Vail area for many years. So it wasn't uncommon for Ford to make public appearances.

At the time, he hosted a celebrity golf tournament (the Jerry Ford Invitational) each year, and lent his support to a public forum that brought former national and world leaders to Vail to debate important issues of the day. Throughout the year, you could also count on seeing Ford at a few charity events and other high-society affairs.

For many years, Ford was the guest of honor at holiday tree-lighting ceremonies at the Vail and Beaver Creek resort communities. I braved the cold, crisp air of a Rocky Mountain evening several times to watch the president kick off yet another Christmas season.

Back then, as a weekly newspaper editor, I often covered such events and regularly took photos for the paper. On one such assignment marking the opening of a nondenominational chapel at the base of Beaver Creek, I encountered my most up-close-and-personal moment with the president.

After years of fund-raising and many months of construction, the beautiful chapel was nearly completed. As he had done many times before for other organizations, Ford came out to mark the occasion and add some star power to the announcement.

A small crowd of maybe 25 or 30 people, including myself and another reporter from a competing local newspaper, gathered on a midsummer day for Jerry's latest appearance. Even though it was mid-July at a deserted ski hill, Ford arrived in a caravan of three or four vehicles that included a contingent of Secret Service agents. I think he brought more people with him than were on hand when he first arrived. For someone who twice was attacked by would-be assassins, the security detail was understandable, even though a few rogue squirrels represented the biggest safety threat to the president.

Coincidentally, it was Ford's birthday, and the event organizers had brought a huge cake and laid it out on a table in a still-unfinished room of the chapel. Most of us figured Ford would bolt for the exit as soon as the ribbon-cutting ended. Instead, he stuck around to chat and hobnob with the folks in attendance.

Although I really can't remember it, I'm sure we all joined in for a rendition of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" followed by polite applause. Next, and what I do remember clearly, the former leader of the free world, a man who pardoned Nixon and someone whose office phone had direct-dial to Moscow and traveled with a briefcase that contained codes that could launch a nuclear strike, sauntered over to his birthday cake and began cutting pieces and handing them out.

I snapped a few photos and, as I had done scores of times before at such events, stood absent-mindedly to the side waiting for an opportune time to move on to the next assignment.

"Hey," the president said in the direction of what may have been the smallest presidential press detail ever. "You boys in the press want some birthday cake, don't you?"

Truly an offer one couldn't refuse, I gamely stepped forward and accepted a slab of the sheet cake the president had just sliced and plopped on a paper plate. My buddy in the press corps did the same.

"Thank you, Mr. President. Happy birthday," I said.

"You're welcome," the former leader of the free world politely replied.

Helen Thomas, the retired Associated Press reporter and longtime dean of the White House press corps, for many years had the honor of asking the first question when a president addressed the press. Thomas was known to lob some of the toughest questions of the day during her opening volley.

My brief conversation with Mr. Ford doesn't exactly qualify as the kind of dialogue destined for the history books, nor did Ms. Thomas ever have to worry about me supplanting her at the front of the line of a White House Q&A.

Nonetheless, I'm especially proud of my one and only presidential press conference, quite possibly the only one that included a hand-delivered slice of birthday cake from the chief executive himself.

• Peter Kostes is associate publisher of the Nevada Appeal. Contact him at pkostes@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1271.