(no subject)

[geminigirl]

I was born in 1975. I was five and a half when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated for his first term. I do remember some of the parts of the Carter administration. I do rememeber hearing about Iran and Iraq, and about hostages. I had no idea where they were, why they were fighting, and so on. But I remember the hostages. And the yellow ribbons.

I knew that Ronald Regan was a bad guy. I had no idea why he was a bad guy, but at the age that I was during the first Reagan term, the world is pretty clearly divided into good guys, and bad guys. And he was a bad guy. At least that's the impression that was left on me by my parents and grandparents. (My mother says to this story, "Well, that's a parent's job-to indocrinate children with their political leanings.")

But no matter what, no matter how I felt, the one thing that the Reagans had between them, that has never seemed the same between other presidential couples is this intense love. It's this sort of pure, intense tenderness that radiated from them for each other. I can't recall seeing that kind of feeling eminating from other presidential couples...not the first Bushes, the Clintons, or the current Bush couple.

I want to be in love that way in 40 or 50 or more years.




My office went to a rare happy hour evening on Wednesday evening. We left happy hour (at Guapos for anyone who wants to know) and I looked at my watch, and realized I could still get into the city and watch the Reagan thing.

I'm a sucker for Pagentry. It's why I'm less inclined to hate the idea of having a big wedding and such, like we're planning. I love the pagentry...I watch stuff like the Canadian Prime Minister's funeral, and the Queen Mum's Birthday Celebration just for the ceremony of it. I admit it.

So I hop the train and head downtown for the moving of the body.

I went, because I could. Because I'm still in/near DC, and I can do these things. And I won't be able to for that much longer.

So I went. And watched. It was an intense, emotional, indescribable experience. Not because I revered the politics, but because of the process. The emptiness, the emotion involved. Because the Reagan administration shaped a great deal of how I feel about politics today.

It was incredible. I'm glad I went, glad I had the opportunity to go, glad I could watch and honor that part of my life.





1. Hearing "Ruffles and Feathers/Hail to the Chief" for a dead president makes me think about zombies. I feel like there should be a zombie president emergeing from the casket or something.

2. After the bizarre West Wing thing (the one about the route taken between the White House and the National Cathedral...you know what I mean, right?) I wanted to know the actual route between the Capitol building and Cathedral, and the White House and Cathedral.

Comments

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. It reflects how I was feeling, but you did much better at putting it in words.

[geminigirl]

You're welcome.

[sandboxdiva.livejournal.com]

And he was a bad guy. At least that's the impression that was left on me by my parents and grandparents.

I was 6 when Reagan was running for his second term. I was all set to vote for him in my first grade class's mock election. I was telling my grandmother this, and she told me I shouldn't vote for Reagan because he was taking food away from the poor people.

I voted for Mondale. I've been a Democrat ever since. :)

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you could go, too.

[geminigirl]

If you had been around, I'd have tried to drag you out after work, and probably missed the whole thing.

I'd rather have seen you. Miss you.

[mathwhiz78.livejournal.com]

when are you leaving DC?

Re: And another question...

[roosterbear.livejournal.com]

When are you going to need a babysitter for the kitties? I still wanna do that.

Re: And another question...

[mathwhiz78.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think you may have replied to the wrong comment.... =)

im me if u have aim; i'm mathwhiz78 there, too. (original, i know)

~mike~

Re: And another question...

[roosterbear.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was just adding my question to yours. Riding your coattails, or something.

im me if u have aim; i'm mathwhiz78 there, too. (original, i know)

Sure! I'm roosterbare, which is close enough to my LJ name. (Someone had already taken roosterbear, and I didn't want to have a trail of meaningless numbers after my name.)

Re: And another question...

[geminigirl]

He looks so grouchy in that photo! That's so not my cat.

First week in August...I'll give you more precise details in IM or something.

Re: And another question...

[roosterbear.livejournal.com]

Good deal. I'll keep that week open!

And it is too your cat. Q just brings out the big grouch in all of us when he's got a camera in his hands. Heh.

[geminigirl]

Some time in the fall, depending on the housing and job situations. September/October-ish at the latest.

[mathwhiz78.livejournal.com]

ooh! i'll be there in mid july! wanna do dinner?

[roosterbear.livejournal.com]

I was 7 when Carter was elected, and in Texas it was almost as if Satan had been elected; he was reviled from the very beginning. Odd, since he was a Southerner, but the Dems really were despised that much there and then. So anyway, when Reagan won in 1980, it didn't seem like such a bad thing. I became hardcore Christian in 1982 at the age of 13, about a year into his presidency, and that probably helped me like him even more. But I always had this nagging sense that his critics, those whiny people that my parents loathed, might actually have a point.

It was much later, actually when the first Bush was president, that my fondness for Reagan and my support of the Republican party began to waver. The beginning of the end for me was seeing Pat Robertson on TV. I don't even remember what he was talking about, but I remember seeing "Christian Coalition" and thinking, okay, here's one of the good guys, and then finding that no, actually, he's kind of creepy, and not representing Christianity at all.

That was a point where I really started to question a lot of my assumptions about life in general.

When I looked back on the Reagan years, especially after being exposed to such things as And The Band Played On, my image of the man was totally shattered. It was kind of ugly. I had slowly come to believe that, even though he was a bit of an airhead, deep down he had a good heart and he meant well. But as I examined more of his policies and actions with an older and more critical eye, and especially after seeing some footage of him as governor of CA, where he wasn't quite so jovial and polished, I can't say that anymore. I can't give him the benefit of the doubt.

I do understand what you're saying about the love between him and Nancy though; that still seems quite real.

[winterbadger]

I almost went downtown to watch some of the events, for the same reasons. And I and a friend did watch most of the service in California last night; we were turnign off the DVD and it switched to live television, and there it was, the eulogies, the salutes, the piper and the honour guard. (The presence of the piper made me very sad, because I had a friend for a good many years who I just about killed by telling him that he *had* to play at my funeral; somewhere along the way we lost touch, and it's been years now since I've seen him).

I had the same thought, BTW, about Ruffles and Flourishes/HTTC: I was watching as they loaded the coffin (news people seem to avoid saying that word--is "casket" the PC non-scary word?) onto the plane to fly here from CA midweek, and when they started playing Hail... I nearly freaked. To me, that's really inappropriate, but since no one asked me... :-)

That's a good point, too, about the West Wing ep.

[geminigirl]

I don't know that I thought it was inappropriate...the only other dead president I've seen honored in my lifetime is Nixon, and they didn't do all of this stuff for him-the family declined the offer of a state funeral. It just made me think of old zombie movies.

I figure, living here entitles me to a bit of DC dork-dom; I watch the episodes and try and figure out what buildings the exteriors are and all that. That's why it bothered me to have a view of the Rotunda through the back of the limo on the way from the White House to the National Cathedral-it didn't make sense. I suppose if they were using it for a location shot, to establish that he was in fact, still in DC, maybe. But he'd just walked out of the White Hosue.

There was another episode where they said that a building was one thing, but whatever building it was, wasn't the real thing. That bothered me too.

[winterbadger]

...and Ft. Myer moved from Virginia to Maryland in one of the eps about terrorism. I love Aaron Sorkin's writing and (most of) his politics, but his research staff needs some help from time to time.

[geminigirl]

Yeah.

Aaron Sorkin also needs to figure out Dupont Circle...I can recall at least two different times when he had someone get lost there (Sydney in American President and CJ in West Wing)

[winterbadger]

And the Iota in WW is much larger, upscale, and more brightly lit than the real one :-) But now I'm just nitpicking... :-)

[aynjel.livejournal.com]

[ is "casket" the PC non-scary word? ]

Near as I can tell, "casket" is the fancy word. Coffin would be the sort of plain wooden box of the sort you see in old vampire movies... while with a casket, you can have chrome accents on the outside, and silk ruffles lining it, and a picture of van Gogh's Starry Night on the inside of the lid just in case you wake up and want something pretty to look at.

(This, having been on the periphery of a project my nearly-ex-company did with the Batesville Casket Company.)

[aynjel.livejournal.com]

[ I feel like there should be a zombie president emergeing from the casket or something. ]

Which reminds me of something a friend emailed me:
http://bush-zombiereagan.com/