Forrest Gump Scene 13 Summary

  • A few months after his New Year's Eve with Lt. Dan, Forrest's ping-pong skills nab him an invite to the White House.
  • This time around, Forrest meets President Richard Nixon. (That's three different presidents, if anyone is keeping count.)
  • Nixon offers to put Forrest up in a nice hotel called the Watergate. In the middle of the night, Forrest calls the front desk to complain about men with flashlights in the room across from his.
  • Little does he know it, but he's actually the one responsible for exposing the great Watergate scandal that would eventually end Richard Nixon's presidency.
  • One day, Forrest is playing ping pong when a man walks up to him and says his Army service has finished and he's been discharged. Forrest responds by running back home to his momma.
  • When he gets home, Forrest finds out that all kinds of companies have been offering money if Forrest agrees to endorse their ping-pong products. Sure, says Forrest, and wouldn't you know it? The sponsorship gives him the money he needs to go buy a shrimping boat and keep his promise to Bubba.
  • Forrest visits Bubba's family, who ask him if he's crazy or just plain stupid to take on a shrimping boat with no prior experience. "Stupid is as stupid does," he says, and then he visits Bubba's grave to tell Bubba about the new shrimping boat he's bought.
  • Forrest doesn't have much luck with shrimping at first, and someone tells him to name his boat for good luck. The name he picks? Jenny.
  • Meanwhile, we see Jenny in California doing cocaine at a club and later sitting in bed next to a guy doing heroine. She gets out of bed in a daze and goes to the edge of her apartment's balcony to stand on the railing, looking down over the streets below. It looks like she's going to jump and finally fulfill her dream of becoming a bird.
  • Instead, she backs off at the last second and cries in a chair.