Gene Takavic

American Giant. One of the best to have ever done it. Be Theodore Roosevelt >Born 1858. New York. Wealthy family. >Sickly child. Severe asthma. Can barely breathe. Weak. >Father tells you: "You have the mind but not the body. Make your body." >Build a gym in your house. Lift. Box. Push until your lungs work. >Will yourself into strength. >Enter Harvard. Box. Row. Hunt. Study everything. >Graduate. Enter politics at 23. >Mother and wife die on the same day. Same house. Valentine's Day 1884. >Write in your diary: "The light has gone out of my life." >Flee to the Badlands. Become a cowboy. Cattle rancher in Dakota Territory. >Hunt grizzlies. Capture outlaws. Live hard. Forge yourself in wilderness. >Return East. Marry again. Re-enter politics. >Become Police Commissioner of New York. Walk the streets at night in disguise. Fire corrupt cops. >Spanish-American War breaks out. >Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Resign immediately. "I will not stay behind a desk." >Form the Rough Riders. Volunteer cavalry. Cowboys, miners, Native Americans, Ivy Leaguers. >Lead them up San Juan Hill. Bullets everywhere. Horse shot. Keep charging on foot. >Return a war hero. >Become Governor of New York. Too reformist. Political bosses want you gone. >"Make him Vice President. That'll shut him up." >President McKinley gets assassinated. You're 42. >Youngest President in American history. >Trust-bust. Break up monopolies. Take on J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller. >Create National Parks. Preserve wilderness. 230 million acres protected. >Build the Panama Canal. "I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate." >Win Nobel Peace Prize for ending Russo-Japanese War. >Finish term. Hand presidency to Taft. >Go on safari in Africa. Kill lions. Collect specimens for museums. >Return. Taft has betrayed your policies. >Run again. Third party. Bull Moose. >Get shot in the chest before a speech in Milwaukee. Bullet lodged in rib. >Refuse hospital. Speech is 50 pages folded in your pocket. Bullet went through it. >"Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot." >Speak for 90 minutes. Bleeding. Then go to hospital. >Lose election. Split the vote. Wilson wins. >Son Quentin dies in WWI aerial combat. Never recover. >Die in your sleep 1919. Age 60. Vice President Marshall: "Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight." Leaves behind: The National Parks. The Panama Canal. Trust-busting precedent. The modern presidency. A regiment. A stuffed bear named after him. Proof that the sickly can become titans. The belief that action conquers everything.