The other day, I had an item about presidential invitations: invitations to and invitations from. (This was sparked by the Notre Dame thing.) I mentioned Tiger Woods, who declined an invitation from President Clinton: Tiger had had other plans (to go to Mexico with friends, following the ’97 Masters).

A reader pointed me to a treasurable fact. It can be found in an obituary of Ralph J. Perk, the mayor of Cleveland from 1972 to 1977. “President Richard M. Nixon invited Mr. Perk and his wife, the former Lucille Gagliardi, to a dinner at the White House. But Mrs. Perk sent word that she could not attend because it was her night to go bowling.”

Now, you may call that weird or perverse or even ungracious. I call that wonderful and human and perfectly republican. There was a woman who was a citizen of a free republic, not a serf in a kingdom. You don’t necessarily have to come runnin’, you know. As I said in that earlier post: We should respect, but we do not have to bend the knee.

Have you ever heard anything more American than Mrs. Perk and her bowling night? No president is a messiah and he should not be a cult figure. He is just a man — one to whom you may prefer bowling.