A President in Springtime

President Obama has to have the most fascinating upbringing of any of the forty-three men who've served in that great office. 

Born in Hawaii (yes, he was born there), his mother was a white woman from Kansas and his dad a black guy from Kenya. The president has lived all over the country and the world: Hawaii, Indonesia, Los Angeles, and, more recently, Chicago and Washington, DC. Obama has to be one of the only presidents who has lived on both coasts, in the American Midwest, and one of our country's two non-contiguous states. Unlike the morons who say he's not an American, Obama has probably lived in, and knows more about, our country than any of them.

And one of the places that Obama has lived was NYC.

He came here in the early 1980s when he transferred to Columbia University. After graduation, he worked for a time at a company near the United Nations. He lived on the upper west side (in my old neighborhood actually) and enjoyed eating in local diners, including the famous Tom's, as well as going to dinner parties. For a time, he had a very serious girlfriend and contemplated life as a New Yorker. Eventually, he would decide to head to Chicago where he would start his career, meet his future wife, and eventually forge a path to his historic presidency. 

But once upon a time, about a quarter of a century ago, he lived here and it shaped the identity of the man who know is the most powerful person in the world.