The Gipper

Today we remember former President Ronald Reagan. I personally had a very hard time of it today. Cried for a long time. Perhaps it was because I did not have many of my own memories of him, so I was not really able to look back at his life and remember specific things and thereby lift my spirits. My attachment to the president came in later years in my somewhat frequent visits to his presidential library. There I saw video of the great moments of his presidency, I saw the Jelly Bellies in the Oval Office replica, I learned about "Star Wars", I saw all the gifts he had been given by foreign dignitaries, and I gazed at the slab of the Berlin Wall that stands solemn on the back lawn while imagining all the free people tearing it down. I even have a small piece of the wall. I have met Nancy Reagan and I saw President Reagan in 1993(4?) at an event to honor the firemen that rescued his library from brush fires. So although I was too young to remember his actual presidency, I have grown up to admire it in hindsight and to admire him as a great man and a great leader. I will never forget him. May he rest in peace, he is with the Lord now.