** Click to read about me in Horizons: AAA Southern New England **

    
Everyone is passionate about something. For some, it could be hockey, health food, or hip hop. For 

others, it could be painting, photography, or poetry. But for me, it is the United States presidents. That’s the 

way it’s been since February 2002, when I was in the second grade. My mother purchased a president 

book from one of those book orders teachers always give you in elementary school. Of course, I wanted 

absolutely nothing to do with this book. I just wanted to play and have fun! Why did my mother buy this

boring book anyway? But whether I liked it or not, it seemed that I was going to have to read the book, as it 

was dropped into my reluctant hands. After procrastinating a few days, I finally sat down with the book and 

delved into the horrors that I was sure awaited me.

    Never in my entire life had I been more surprised than when I started reading that book, entitled 

So You Want to Be President by Judith St. George and David Small. I LOVED it!!!!! It had so many 

interesting facts that grasped me, like that the White House “has a swimming pool, bowling alley, and 

movie theatre.” It talked about the presidents’ pesky siblings (something I have in common with our nation’s 

leaders). But what probably gripped me most of all was the hilarious illustrations: eight tiny tikes biting 

George Washington and pulling his hair; Quentin Roosevelt riding a horse inside the Executive Mansion; 

and my favorite: the rotund President Taft being lowered into a bath tub by a construction worker-operated 

crane! Turkey leg and champagne glass in hand of course!

    From then on, I realized that fun books didn’t have to be just about super heroes or comic strip 

characters, but they could be about the presidents as well! True, it was C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb who inspired me to visit each presidential tomb, but if my mother had not bought me that book, I never would have been interested in presidents in the first place. Why did my mother buy that book for me? I still don’t know to this day, but that’s not important. What is important is that she did buy it, and that it has sparked an interest in me that has lasted over eight years. And for that, I love and thank her from the bottom of my heart.

    I am Kurt Alexander Deion, and I visit the graves of the presidents of the United States.