second inauguration. it just wasn t his, some poor cold guy defending him. at the smithsonian year that, now the national museum of american history, which was then the museum of technology, they held one of the inaugural balls there. it went bad in a very specific way. again, they apparently had had a farm life exhibit set up, i don t know, like the history of farming techniques in the united states or something. i don t know. but for whatever reason, they didn t clear out the farm life exhibit from the museum in order to make room for the inaugural ball and in the middle of the festivities, a large, angry red rooster got loose in the inaugural balance and started wreaking havoc in the v.i.p. section.
not long thereafter, of course, president nixon would be resigning in disgrace in the watergate scandal. that inauguration date, the start of their second term, that day itself was a perfectly inauspicious start to that inauspicious presidential term. the president may have been trying to project a little youthful vigor or something or for whatever reason he went out that day to his inauguration, january 20th, 1973, he went out just in his suit, he went out without a top coat. turns out, that was a bad plan. once he was out there, the temperature dropped, he got really cold and he didn t have a warm coat of his own so he took one off some poor secret service agent. that borrowed coat, the coat he took from the secret service officer ended up getting donated to the smithsonian because it s what president nixon wore to his second inauguration. it just wasn t his, some poor cold guy defending him.