{"id":566,"date":"2026-04-08T19:22:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T19:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newstephenddev.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=566"},"modified":"2026-04-08T23:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:02:12","slug":"welcome-home-old-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/?p=566","title":{"rendered":"WELCOME HOME, OLD FRIEND"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I&#8217;m looking forward to our reunion. We have much to catch up on. Thank you. Welcome, home, old friend.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What was your reaction to these words, the conclusion of Gerald Ford&#8217;s posthumous eulogy to Jimmy Carter, spoken by his son, Steve Ford at Jimmy Carter&#8217;s funeral? I am sure you were moved<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mine was to burst into tears. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Redemptive words, spoken in a holy place. A blessing for all of us. Two persons, rivals for the presidency, connected by respect, admiration and affection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whatever heaven is, this is the stuff of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m looking forward to our reunion. We have much to catch up on. Thank you. Welcome, home, old friend.&#8221; What was your reaction to these words, the conclusion of Gerald Ford&#8217;s posthumous eulogy to Jimmy Carter, spoken by his son, Steve Ford at Jimmy Carter&#8217;s funeral? I am sure you were moved Mine was to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writers-blog"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"newstephenddev","author_link":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendavenportauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}