DéJà VU…. PARDON ME?.....
Listening to the reports of Trump exploring a pardon for himself brought back vivid memories of the Nixon resignation and how it impacted my life. The picture that I have attached was taken at Peggy’s Cove in 1969 while I was a student at Dalhousie University.
In 1972 I was newly married and was hired by Merill Lynch – Royal Securities in their St. John’s Nfld office. At that time every new hire was sent to New York for 3 months training at head office at the 51 story Liberty Plaza building. My wife Noreen packed up our stuff and our 2 cats heading to New Glasgow where she planned to stay with her folks. After driving for roughly 12 hours across the island we got to Port Aux Basques and boarded the ferry and went to sleep. I woke up and remarked that it was a fairly calm crossing and then looked out the porthole and realized that we had not left yet. A tropical storm had made it unsafe to venture out of the bay and then off we went for a very rough crossing. Upon arrival in North Sydney we could not dock until the winds abated.
So…after driving for 12 hours across Nfld., being stuck on a ferry in the aftermath of a hurricane, waiting 5 hours to be able to dock in North Sydney I was off to New York and arrived on Sunday November 5th 1972 to stay in an apartment at 37th and Lexington and shared the apartment with Phil Hoon from Tulsa and Jamison Madison Monroe from Dallas.
On Monday morning I woke up early, excited for my first day of training. Given that I had never been on a subway I decided to walk. (0 minutes and 37 blocks later I arrived at 1 Liberty Plaza, went up to the 40th floor and was told that I was 2 days early. “Didn’t you get our TWX (Telex message) that due to the American election on Tuesday November 7th classes would not begin until Thursday November 9th. Thank you Richard Nixon!
Two years later in May of 1974 I was attending the Bearing Specialists Association convention in San Francisco. I was surprised when I walked out to the plaza in from of the St. Francis Hotel to hear a newspaper vendor hawking papers “Read all about it. Tricky Dick is going to jail!”.
So….I am flummoxed by President Trump looking for a pardon to exempt himself from by both past and future prosecutions?????
