June 05, 2004

Ronald Reagan

Reagan was President from when I was 6 years old to 14. He's the first President I ever knew of, and I guess part of me thought he'd be President forever.

And now he's gone. I'm strangely ambivalent about the Gipper's legacy; on one hand, his policies and his politics helped pave the way for the train wreck that's happened since. There's a lot about him that makes me want to go up to every Baby Boomer I see and scream, "How could you let this happen?!?" But more on that another time, maybe.

And yet, for all that, there was a charm and an earnestness about him that we haven't seen since. There's also an anecdote about him I read somewhere that I want to share. He was doing radio broadcasts for a minor-league baseball team in Illinois. The station couldn't afford to send him on road trips, so they installed some kind of telegraph system that would send constant updates. Ron would then use his charm and wit to flesh the numbers out into a realistic-sounding play-by-play. Well, in the middle of one game, the machine broke. So Reagan just narrated the batter fouling off pitch after pitch after pitch until someone could come in and fix it.

Reagan was a true American original, and for better or worse, the country wouldn't be the same without him.

Comments

well put

Posted by: edved at June 6, 2004 09:56 PM

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