By Joe Serwach
U-M Road Scholars Class of 2005
     The magic of the Michigan Road Scholars: it connects us with the state we serve and call home. It took a Road Scholars reunion to reconnect me with a piece of my own childhood. And to learn that something I'd forgotten about 30 years ago was carefully preserved at a Presidential Library on the very campus where I work.
      This year the Road Scholars had their annual reception at the Gerald R. Ford Library on North Campus, where we learned about the more than 20 million documents saved there from the Ford presidency. We learned all the original documents were there including the actual cables from the fall of Saigon. Literally every document from the Ford presidency. We learned about a host of documents including letters written to President Ford by small children. Suddenly, I had a question: 
     "I wrote President Ford a letter when I was a child. Would it be here too?''
      They said they would check. I supplied my name and email address figuring it would take days to find one obscure letter --  if it was even there. Within six minutes, they found the letter I wrote Gerald Ford on June 30, 1976 as well as a copy of his reply. Not a microfiche. Not a Xerox or faded copy. But the actual letter I wrote in my own hand writing in original condition. I was 11-years-old when I wrote that letter and had long forgotten what I even said.
       But I've always remembered President Ford's reply and how the letter came about. I was watching the news and a report explained how Ford signed someone's cast during a campaign swing through Michigan. Others wanted his autograph too and his time was limited so Ford told the crowd that if they wanted his autograph, just write to the White House and he would reply. I thought that sounded like a great idea. 
         I looked up the address for the White House and wrote him a short letter telling him how a class election in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan went (since he was the only president from our home state, most people I knew supported him). I  asked him for an autographed picture and wished him and Mrs. Ford a happy Fourth of July. I spelled ``sincerely'' wrong. I'd forgotten that letter but never forgot when the reply came: an autographed photo and a letter from Ford written July 19, 1976. 
        My dad had it framed (as he had done with his own autographed photos from Presidents Truman, Johnson and Nixon) and the Ford letter and photo hung in my childhood bedroom for at least 10 years or more. At some point, long after I left home, someone bumped into it and the frame fell to the ground and broke. I know it was in a drawer for a while but where it is now? I have no idea. But I intend to track it down. If only I had been as good at organizing my things as the Ford library staff was. 
       I was stunned to find my letter and the reply were so easy to look up, that a staffer could find them within minutes with nothing more than my name. I was equally impressed to know something I'd written at age 11 had been carefully preserved for 30 years, that it's been here at U-M for decades. I am awed to know that my children or great grand children or their great grand children will be able to come to the library and look this up simply by looking under their own family name. 
       I've always loved history but this little episode now makes me want to go to the Carter and Reagan libraries to see if letters I wrote those presidents are still on file. It makes me want to look up more things. I'm intrigued to hear how the presidential libraries are saving millions of emails sent to the White House each month. I once wondered the point of saving everything in a presidential library. But now I get it. It's not just a president's history housed in these presidential libraries. 
         It's our history too.