George Washington Met Woodrow Wilson--No Lie

Good thing George Washington cannot tell a lie.

Otherwise it might be tough to swallow his tale about the cop who pulled him over a few years back. Suspecting Washington, a Los Angeles real estate broker, of being less than honest about his name, the officer ordered him out.

After Washington’s driver’s license shut the disbelieving cop up, the officer quipped to the passenger: “So who are you? Andrew Jackson?”

He was indeed.

Washington’s cousin is Andrew Jackson of South-Central Los Angeles.

And the two were on their way to see their friend Woodrow Wilson in East Los Angeles.

Honest.

“I never tell a lie,” Washington said.

Thousands of men such as Washington, Jackson and Wilson enjoy the novelty--or bear the burden--of sharing the name of a U.S. president. So on this day devoted to honoring chief executives living and dead, it is altogether fitting and proper that we should remember our fellow Americans who get all of the ribbing, some of the hassles but few of the perks that come with the nation’s highest office.

“It was kind of a novelty at first,” said Jimmy Carter of North Hollywood. “But then you started hearing the same things over and over--especially about peanuts. Sometimes, they were cute, but most of the time it was just people being obnoxious--’Got any peanuts? Got a peanut ranch?’ Or they might throw some kind of beer joke at me because of Billy.”

Sometimes, though, the jokes degenerate from obnoxious to threatening.

In 1963, John F. Kennedy of Canoga Park was living in Indianapolis on--where else?--Pennsylvania Avenue. For days after the assassination in Dallas, Kennedy’s phone rang and rang with weirdos wondering: “How does it feel to have a hole in your head?”

Kennedy, now retired, changed his number several times on the advice of the Secret Service. But even now, drunks occasionally call up at 2 a.m. demanding to speak to the dead President.

During the heady days of Camelot, children would call Kennedy’s house asking not what they could do for their country, but whether Caroline or John John could come to the phone. So Kennedy would put his wife on the line who, raising her voice a few pitches, told the young callers what it was like to live in the White House and have such a powerful daddy.

“I was always going to write Kennedy and let him know that we were getting more calls for Caroline than for him,” Kennedy said. “But I never did. He probably would have written back and that letter would be worth thousands now.”

A missed opportunity--and more than once Kennedy’s name caused missed hotel reservations. More than once, Kennedy’s reservations were thrown out because some clerk dismissed Kennedy as a prankster.

“Once I had to go to another town to find a hotel,” he said.

Kennedy’s bosses toyed with the clerks at a Chicago hotel during his company’s annual meeting by putting him in the same room as a San Francisco manager, a fellow by the name of, well, um, Ronald Reagan.

Experts say being named for a president can add up to a lot of pressure. Those are some mighty big shoes to fill--a Size 14 in the case of Abraham Lincoln.

“The name often carries a lot of pressure for a child,” said Catherine Cameron, a sociology professor at the University of LaVerne and author of “The Name Givers: How They Influence Your Life.” “If a parent idolizes a particular president there may be some strong expectations of that child.”

That may be, but William McKinley’s parents did not necessarily view their son as cut from presidential timber. “As far as I know, my parents just liked the name,” said the parks and recreation worker from Glendale. “I just hope I don’t end up like he did.”

McKinley was mortally wounded by an anarchist on Sept. 6, 1901, after delivering a speech at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y..

More often than not, fate throws a christening.

“It turns out the name came from two grandfathers--one named William and one named Henry,” said William Henry Harrison of Woodland Hills, who shares his name with the lesser-known half of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” “If I had been born a few months earlier my name would have been Enoch, but my cousin got that.”

Lucky for Harrison.

And Harrison has been luckier--or perhaps wiser--than the kindly but obstinate ninth President who in the bitter Washington winter refused to wear a hat, overcoat or gloves during his two-hour inaugural address.

A month later, he was dead of pneumonia.

Harrison gets sideways glances now and then when he writes a check or makes airline reservations. But that is a problem James Buchanan of Woodland Hills rarely has. Few people born in the last three decades remember that Buchanan--a jovial man who frequently gets blamed for failing to prevent the Civil War--was the President who preceded Lincoln.

“People are more apt now to ask if I’m related to Pat Buchanan,” screenwriter Buchanan said, referring to the conservative commentator who, if things had gone differently, could have been included in this story.

Instead, Bill Clinton of Sherman Oaks gets the honor.

He learned, as other presidential namesakes have, that it does not take long before your name seems to pop out of the phone book. On the night then-Gov. Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination for president, then- and still-contractor Clinton got a call from Elvis--or an impersonator--wishing him the best of luck.

As one might suspect, Chester A. Arthur III of Sun Valley was not named for the 21st President. He was named for his father, Chester A. Arthur Jr. He, in turn, was named for his father, Chester A. Arthur, who was indeed named for the dapper chief executive who reformed the federal civil service.

“Pretty much every history teacher I’ve ever had has asked me about this,” said the third generation Arthur, a 17-year-old high school senior who plays guitar in the garage band 100 Big Shrimp.

On more than one occasion, Arthur said, classmates have blurted out while flipping through their history books: “Hey, this guy has your name!” But for all that, Arthur said: “It’s just a name to me.”

Indeed, they are just names. But sometimes there are similarities between the man in the White House and the man in a tract house. George Washington of Los Angeles says he is as much a flirt as George Washington of Virginia. Washington refused to reveal his age because “all the ladies would know.”

And Abraham Lincoln of Van Nuys shares with the tall, gawky President no great affection for the ink-stained wretches who toil at daily newspapering.

He hung up on The Times.

Twice.

INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE: Floor-by-floor drawings of the Executive Mansion. A14