By John Branston 

GRIZZLIES COUNTRY, MT – Our 26th president had the cojones of Hemingway, the adventures of Indiana Jones, the connections of the Kennedys, the compassion of Eleanor Roosevelt (his niece), the progressive instincts of his cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt  and the not-so-progressive ones of the NRA.

His children became famous in their own right. One of his sons helped lead the Normandy invasion.

His pet project was the Panama Canal.

He survived an assassination attempt and carried the bullet in him until he died. He helped create the national parks.

He led a cavalry charge up a hill on horseback under gunfire. He graduated from Harvard and got a Nobel Prize. He wrote books all by himself.  

He lowered tariffs and busted business trusts.

He visited Mississippi and made “the Teddy Bear” a legend. Hostile reporters were present and he turned a potential PR disaster into a bonanza by declining to shoot it because it was tethered.

 And, of course, he had his faults. He had the cussed reluctance to get off the stage of Joe Biden. He was president from 1901-1909, tried again and lost, tried yet again and lost again. He was shot by a would-be assassin, kept the gunman from being lynched, completed his speech and carried the bullet in his chest for the rest of his life – which was not long because instead of playing golf in his later years he explored the Amazon and exposed himself to nasty diseases.

He also had the ego of Donald Trump, according to his daughter, Alice: “My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening.”

He was founder of the Boone and Crockett Club, located in an old train station in Missoula, MT. fronted by a statue of a grizzly bear. Missoula is home of the “other” Grizzlies. The  University of Montana athletic teams and scores of businesses are nicknamed the Grizzlies or Griz.

The interior scenes of the hit Western “Yellowstone” are filmed in Missoula. I went there last week and failed to get an audition. The base of the statue is covered with plaques inscribed with TR’s famous sayings. The man had a talent for epigram and was not shy about using it.

On life: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

On conservation: “Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”

On wildlife conservation: “Game belongs to the people now alive but also to the unborn people.” (Missoula neighborhoods are overrun by deer.)

On the strenuous life: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.” (A trope as popular with politicians as Sinatra’s  “I Did It My Way” is with retiring executives.)

The Boone and Crockett Club honors Kentuckian Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett — a hunter and congressman from East Tennessee until he was voted out of office in 1836. A sore loser, Davy said “You can all go to hell and I will go to Texas.” Quote-magnet worthy, but technically he migrated to Mexico. Texas was not yet annexed by the USA and did not become a state until 1845.)

Roosevelt’s only daughter Alice was as unlike Hunter Biden or Donald Trump Jr. as you can get. She was a curmudgeonly badass, a socialite who got around, a smoker, and an atheist with a wicked sense of humor like Mark Twain.

“If you can’t say something good about anyone come sit right here with me,” was one of her zingers.

She kept Hell waiting 96 years. TR died at 60.

 

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To read more of John Branston’s posts, go to categories on the right side of this blog’s home page and select his name.   

John Branston has been contributing to Smart City Memphis for four years. Before that he wrote columns, breaking news, and long-form stories for The Commercial Appeal, Memphis Flyer, Memphis magazine, and other print and online publications. He is author of the books Rowdy Memphis (2004) and What Katy Did (2017). He is a journalist and opinion writer.  His stories are based on reporting, interviews and quotes supported by notes or a tape recorder. He has written about people who made Memphis what it is, for better and worse; about sleep issues and depression; about racquet sports; and about travel in the South and West.