Reporter's Note: The President of the United States would like his nation’s citizens to take a direct role in the management of the country, by sending suggestions his way. When I’m not glued to the Stanley Cup playoffs, I try to oblige with a letter a day to Pennsylvania Avenue.

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Tom Foreman | Bio
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Happy Mother’s Day. I know your mother passed away some years ago, and having lost my father just last year, I also know how difficult a parent’s death can be. On that front, my thoughts and best wishes are with you on this day, one son to another.

I’ve read a fair bit about your mother and she sounds like she was an interesting, adventurous, and idealistic woman. So I thought I should tell you a bit about my mother, too. Her name is June, and she was born deep in the Alabama countryside, on a red dirt road; the same road she lives on today…only now it is paved.

She met my father (an Air Force man as I have mentioned before) when he was stationed at Maxwell Field in Montgomery. He was from Chicago, like you, and they must have seemed an unlikely couple. She thought he was an arrogant, big city guy; and his parents thought she was a hillbilly. But they married. She traveled with him to South Dakota, Illinois, North Africa; she held the home front while he deployed to Korea, Alaska, and Guam.

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