“You want to be president?”

A friend asked me that particular political question during an afternoon recess back when I was in the eighth grade. I was at an age when I was a little naive about my political potential and oblivious to the responsibilities of political office.

I never was one of those people who could honestly tell people during a presidential campaign that “I’ve wanted to be president since grade school.” I hadn’t given it any thought. I hadn’t even heard that old saying about how we lived in a country where “everybody can grow up to be president.” 

So, I didn’t know how to answer my friend’s question.

“You mean now? Don’t we have basketball practice after school? And don’t you at least have to be old enough to vote before you become president?”

No, as it turned out, the age and the voting things didn’t matter. My friend wanted me to run for eighth-grade class president, not THE president of the United States. And since we’re emphasizing words, I should clarify the emphasis of his words, which made the sentence sound like “You want to be PRESIDENT?” said sort of matter-of-factly, as if he was just getting permission to start my campaign, instead of “YOU want to be PRESIDENT?” as if he was astounded. Maybe amused.

I think I shrugged and said “I don’t care.” Then I kicked off my campaign by doodling during geography class and hustling off to basketball practice when the bell sounded.

The basketball was one of the three main things I had going for me as a presidential candidate. Since I was tall enough to play center on the basketball team, I stood head and shoulders above the voters in my class, so my face looked familiar to them.

And because I played basketball, I knew the cheerleaders, who already had sign-making skills and were used to having to cheer for me, whether they wanted to or not. And most importantly, nobody else in the class wanted to be president. It was a pretty clear path to political success.

In fact, I’m fairly sure that the lack of opposition was why my friends asked me run. They didn’t want to be president. They just wanted to know the president. So, they needed a designated shrugger.

I shrugged and tried to sound heartfelt when I told a reporter for the mimeographed school newspaper that “I’ve wanted to be president ever since yesterday.”

“Sure,” I said, and shrugged, when I answered a classmate’s question about whether I was in favor of longer lunch breaks.

And I shrugged when I said “OK, that’s cool,” on Election Day, when I learned that I had won over nobody — except Mickey Mouse, who got two write-in votes. One of them might have been mine.

Then I went to basketball practice.

Now I didn’t realize that getting elected was just the start of it, rather than the end of the job. Which, I suppose, is why I forgot to tell my mom that the mother of the eighth-grade class president traditionally was elected to supply the cookies for the class Christmas party. Call her a running mate.

When she asked me why I was only bringing this up the night before the party, I said “I don’t know,” and I shrugged.

It was a surprisingly honest answer for a politician, but not necessarily a good one.

Gary Brown writes for The Repository in Canton, Ohio. Contact him at gary.brown@cantonrep.com.