President Reagan.
I wrote about President Reagan once, when I was eight or nine years old. Actually, I wrote about a neighbor, a then-new friend of my mothers, who had worked for the President when he was the Governor of California. I had overheard part of a story between the adults, and my interpretation made it into my essay for the GATE program's journalism unit at my elementary school. Unfortunately, what was an innocent comment in my mind turned out to be a rather humorous, innuendo-laden comment to the adults who read my essay, and it was subsequently published (without my parents or the friend seeing it first) in the local paper. You can imagine the ensuing hilarity.
Oops.
Anyway. Every morning this week I am choked up with sorrow for his family as the newscasters describe the masses of people waiting to pay final respects in venues I know well--first at the Presidential Library down the road from my undergraduate alma mater that was dedicated while I was in school, and then today in DC. I have wished, this week, that I were still in Washington, where his funeral service is being anticipated with the solemnity and pomp that seem so appropriate. I wished today that I could attend the processional on Constitution, feeling the pressure of the humidity and the pressure of the masses of mourners saying farewell, knowing that I was watching a moment in time.
Missy has pictures from the processional.