Hello, Eleanor, please ...

This is Eleanor Roosevelt.

Please turn off your radio, Eleanor.

Do you have a laminated badge, Eleanor?

We were living in complete chaos, Eleanor said.

Eleanor, I'm sorry, do you have a laminated badge?

May I conclude by recalling the words of Eleanor Roosevelt

And, incidentally, I call her the Eleanor Roosevelt of the Right.

David is a software engineer. Eleanor takes care of their four children, ages 10 to 15.

She was sort of adored on the Right the way Eleanor Roosevelt was on the Left.

Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi all these peopled described themselves as quiet and soft spoken and even shy.

And when I strenuously objected this would never work in our house, our kids needed way too much monitoring, Eleanor looked at me.

President Roosevelt may have committed the same error if his wife, Eleanor, had not encouraged him to set an example with his stomach.

So that, as Eleanor Roosevelt said once of human rights, the same is true of gender equality that it starts in small places, close to home.

And for me, one of the great stories recently was the Obamas digging up the south lawn of the White House to create a vegetable garden. Because the last time that was done, when Eleanor Roosevelt did it, it led to the creation of 20 million vegetable gardens across the United States.

So on the morning I visited, Eleanor came downstairs, poured herself a cup of coffee, sat in a reclining chair, and she sat there, kind of amiably talking to each of her children as one after the other they came downstairs, checked the list, made themselves breakfast, checked the list again, put the dishes in the dishwasher, rechecked the list, fed the pets or whatever chores they had, checked the list once more, gathered their belongings, and made their way to the bus.