Saturday, January 22, 2005
Brush with Greatness -- Reagan
An occasional series.
By The Erudite Redneck
Out popped the president in all his hail-fellow-well-met glory, wide-eyed, all teeth, waving big, looking through and over the people gathered to worship him on a spring day in the Rose Garden at the White House.
He'd played this part a million times. Iran-Contra was making headlines in early 1987, the loyal opposition in Congress was starting to call for his head, but if he was concerned, you couldn't tell it.
The Rose Garden ceremony was to honor the University of Tennessee women's basketball team, recently crowned national champions. A 20-something ER was there with a group of other journalism interns serving individual members of the 100th Congress.
Somebody handed the president a big pair of Converse basketball shoes, Tennessee orange. The strings were tied together. He hung them around his neck.
There was the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, goofing around, big ol' orange tennis shoes swaying and bouncing against the breast of his brown suit coat.
Somebody tossed him a basektball. He tried and failed to dribble it, just slapping at the ball, which got away from him. Somebody tossed it back to him, and he tried and failed again to dribble, and away went the ball.
He stepped to a microphone, said a few words, shook a few hands, posed for a few pictures. Then, he and the small swarm of Secret Service types and other presidential hangers-on moved en mass toward the White House, disappearing through a door.
He'd come out to honor the girls. They and others in the not-that-big crowd seemed to have come to worship him.
I have since come to admire the historical legacy of President Reagan, and, with the rest of the country, I was sad when he became ill and sad when he died.
But on a spring day in the Rose Garden in 1987, I was perhaps the lone infidel in a crowd of true believers. It was fun to be that close to a president, to be part of the official "in" crowd that day.
But I was just a visitor in the Church of Reagan.
END
By The Erudite Redneck
Out popped the president in all his hail-fellow-well-met glory, wide-eyed, all teeth, waving big, looking through and over the people gathered to worship him on a spring day in the Rose Garden at the White House.
He'd played this part a million times. Iran-Contra was making headlines in early 1987, the loyal opposition in Congress was starting to call for his head, but if he was concerned, you couldn't tell it.
The Rose Garden ceremony was to honor the University of Tennessee women's basketball team, recently crowned national champions. A 20-something ER was there with a group of other journalism interns serving individual members of the 100th Congress.
Somebody handed the president a big pair of Converse basketball shoes, Tennessee orange. The strings were tied together. He hung them around his neck.
There was the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, goofing around, big ol' orange tennis shoes swaying and bouncing against the breast of his brown suit coat.
Somebody tossed him a basektball. He tried and failed to dribble it, just slapping at the ball, which got away from him. Somebody tossed it back to him, and he tried and failed again to dribble, and away went the ball.
He stepped to a microphone, said a few words, shook a few hands, posed for a few pictures. Then, he and the small swarm of Secret Service types and other presidential hangers-on moved en mass toward the White House, disappearing through a door.
He'd come out to honor the girls. They and others in the not-that-big crowd seemed to have come to worship him.
I have since come to admire the historical legacy of President Reagan, and, with the rest of the country, I was sad when he became ill and sad when he died.
But on a spring day in the Rose Garden in 1987, I was perhaps the lone infidel in a crowd of true believers. It was fun to be that close to a president, to be part of the official "in" crowd that day.
But I was just a visitor in the Church of Reagan.
END
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There weren't 100 of us. There ... maybe 20. And we were fairly split politically, actually. We were placed with congressmen based on a questionnaire and an essay -- and I got put with a Republican, from Georgia. The ones of us from the South were either with Repubs or conservative Democrats. My main complaints against President Reagan weren't really partisan. 1. He scared me. I really was worried that we and the Soviets were gonna blow up the world. 2. His administration's disdain for the law pissed me off, especially when it came to the House-sponsored "Boland amendment," which forbade U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. Reagan's people dissed the House, which means they dissed the house of the people, which means they dissed me -- and I took it personally.
I liked President Reagan, but I disliked a lot of his policies. I disliked President Clinton, but liked a lot of his policies. I'm just contrary.
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