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The Book of the Week is “No Such Thing As A Bad Day, A Memoir” by Hamilton Jordan (NOT to be confused with Jim Jordan or Vernon Jordan), published in 2000. This volume was a mishmash of a few topics, including his bouts with cancers, a bit about his political career, and his uncle’s civil rights activism. He claimed not to be an attention whore, but the book’s front cover featured a photo of his face, and the back cover, a photo of him with his family.
During the Vietnam Era, the author’s friends at the University of Georgia were either members of ROTC or the National Guard. In 1967, at 23 years old, he joined International Voluntary Services (an organization sort of like the Peace Corps) to help the Vietnamese people grow rice.
The author was a tad insecure, apparently feeling the need to engage in name-dropping of celebrities, even though he must have met a huge number of them in his lifetime; he worked for Jimmy Carter, before and during the time Carter was president. He wrote, “Roy Cohn practiced law in New York City… representing some celebrity (like Donald Trump) in some highly public divorce settlement or scandal.” In August 1979, the FBI showed up at the author’s home, in connection with cocaine and Studio 54 in New York City.
The author then described his uncle Clarence’s civil-rights activities, that in the mid to late 1950’s, consisted of organizing a biracial Baptist commune with tens of residents, called Koinonia in rural Georgia (the state of the United States). Clarence was just trying to practice what Christians preached, but (excuse the cliche) no good deed ever goes unpunished. As can be imagined, Clarence was doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One last interesting factoid: According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and an index) when Bill Clinton was a newly elected president, the author advised aide George Stephanopoulos to recommend that Clinton get rid of the Independent Counsel law. That law had been a thorn in the sides of presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and others, and continues to be. Enough said.
Read the book to learn various other details about the above, and about the author’s bouts with cancers.