This day almost got past me without my noticing it.

Today would have been Gerald Ford’s 100th birthday.

The 38th president of the United States came into this world on July 14, 1913 as Leslie King Jr. His parent divorced when he was a baby, his mother remarried and her new husband adopted the youngster, giving him the name of Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr.

Ford went on to do some marvelous things: a standout football career at the University of Michigan, obtaining a law degree from Yale, service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, service in the U.S. House of Representatives, service on the Warren Commission examining the assassination of President Kennedy, selection as vice president of the United States and, finally, his elevation to the presidency in 1974.

The attached link notes his early stance for civil rights for black Americans.

http://www.npr.org/2013/07/14/201946977/the-civil-rights-stand-of-a-young-gerald-ford?ft=1&f=1014

The link also takes note of his pardon in September 1974, one month after becoming president, of his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon, for crimes he committed or may have committed against the United States.

The pardon arguably cost Ford election to the presidency in 1976, but it turned out to be the right thing to do.

Indeed, none other than the late Sen. Ted Kennedy — one of the president’s harshest critics of the pardon at the time he issued it — took note of the courage that Ford demonstrated in pardoning Nixon. In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library awarded Ford its Profile in Courage Award, acknowledging for all time the courage the president demonstrated in seeking to end the divisiveness of the Watergate era. Sen. Kennedy admitted at that ceremony that he was wrong in 1974 to criticize the president for issuing the pardon.

Gerald Ford said simply after taking the presidential oath of office on Aug. 9, 1974 that “the Constitution works.” He was so correct.

It worked at that instant in large measure because a good man took the reins of power at precisely the right moment.