Portrait of the President as a Young Man (Ronald Reagan)

TWENTY-FIVE years ago last Thursday, in another era, another century, the president of the United States walked into a salvo of bullets, one of which brought him to the brink of death.

It's possible that as the doctors worked desperately to overtake the flood of blood draining from him, he may have dreamed, as dying people are supposed to do, about his past life. We only know that he survived and cheated death — if not dementia — for another couple of decades.

Without being as speculative a biographer as Lytton Strachey was about Queen Victoria drifting off, I think it more likely that Ronald Reagan's dreams were of days and years to come. (He had had a near-death experience once before, from viral pneumonia in 1947, and wrote a vivid account of it.) Even in youth, and in abundant good health, Dutch Reagan showed a freakish ability to remember, as it were, his own future.

His teenage short stories, which I discovered in a trunk of junk in the basement of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, are so permeated with his later personality that you can practically see the "sixty-year-old smiling public man" walking toward you, unhurried but unstoppable. And how about the self-portrait reproduced at right below, which he drew for his high-school yearbook? Nobody who ever walked into the Oval Office between 1981 and 1989 can look at it without a shock of recognition.

Note, by the way, the film strip uncurling from the desk. Even at 17, Dutch saw himself as a creature of Hollywood. When he went on to college, his remembrance of things to come extended, more creepily, to a short story that amounted to a virtual synopsis of his starring role in "Knute Rockne, All American" (1940). At the time he wrote it,

While I hated Morris' book, I love this article and his use of "remembering the future". That captures what I always found so captivating about Reagan...he seemed to know the future and was comfortable with it.

I had never seen the high school self-portrait. How astonishing! As is the fact that unknown elements of the man continue to be unveiled after so many years in the public spotlight.

My favorite book was the one with all the love letters to Nancy. I can't even fathom the mind that could produce those letters.

Not a bit. It was exciting. Dave Palmer was wonderful; his dad, B.J., was something else.

The station was owned by this family. Dave Palmer was pretty upstanding, he and his wife eventually went through a very nasty divorce. I met his ex-wife at a charismatic prayer meeting; they were pillars of the Ecpisopalian Church, and Dave was confined to a wheel chair in the last years of his life. My girlfriend worked for Dave for awhile before she had chidlren and just thought he was a wonderful man.

My mother told me a story, and I've no doubt it was probably true that BJ, whose father was founder of the famous chiropractic school, used to pinch the ladies on the rear at the station I think it was; i.e., sexual harassment, but it wasn't called that then. Women had to put up with it if they wanted a decent job in those days. I think that's what "Lu" was referring to when she said BJ was something else; he was probably eccentric as well. My mother never worked there, but I think she had friends who did.

People come from all over the world to attend that school; my cousin graduated from there and has done extremely well, but I always thought it was kind of a spooky place, maybe just an odd quirk of mine.

He, back to Reagan now does sound like a nice guy in his young years, gentlemanly with manners like a lot of men had back then with women, with a playful side to his personality.

I still listen to that station every day, morning chit chat, then Dr. Laura, Rush, local talk show, Sean, Michael Reagan, then George Noory (usually skip that but not always) and Paul Harvey's little spots. I used to listen to Paul Harvey on the car radio when my father drove me to school in the 50's.

I felt like responding to those ugly comments but was left kind of speechless. The first guy has obviously listened to somebody on the right-wing lunatic fringe (I could name a couple of names but won't); I have no clue where the second guy is coming from. I wish they'd take them down. They're slanderous as far as I am concerned. Where is the proof?

That's about all I can add. Reagan was born in Dixon, Illinois; his early life has been written about, but my family never knew him. I lived in Dixon for a short while when I was very small during WWII.

I thought President Reagan had a pretty level head; it was kind of an odd spin the NYT put on it, almost making him out to be some kind person driven by some psychic map in his own mind, not particularly flattering. If he had a sense of destiny about any of his life, he certainly didn't project it. It seems like things just more or less fell into place for him because he had a genuine interest in politics and a genuine concern for the country.

I had a friend while I was in the Army back in the 60's

I hope you do stop and see him if you are able or at least call him. There are four or more of my girlfriends and a couple guy friends from that time that I've completely lost track of and would dearly love to at least be able to write or call them, just to see how they are doing.

Al and Sandy Bishop from Louisville, KY, resided Petaluma, CA 64-66 Two Rock Ranch Station, had baby son named Eddie

Frank and Margaret Cleary, she from England, don't know his home town, resided Petaluma, CA 64-66, he Hamilton AFB, CA, had two daughters, Dawn and Sharon.

Rob and Kathleen Robinson, she from northern England, he from Greenville, MS, Petaluma, CA 64-66, Two Rock Ranch Station, had son Robert ? Christopher ? Thomas ? (the English give their children three names)

Al and Mary Schafer(sp?), she from West VA, don't know his home town, six months in 1964, Ft. Devens, MA, had baby Ricky.

Ray Coleman, USAF, Hamilton AFB, about 1965, married to a Phillipino woman

Robert E. Judy from Tacoma, WA, can't remember his two boys' names, Hamilton AFB, CA, I still remember his AF number after all these years from typing it a lot at work.

Major Emmett E. Rhoades, Hamilton AFB, married a Phillipino woman and had a baby, last lived in Novato, CA

CWO Oliver E. Mann and wife "Sam", Hamilton AFB, CA

Maybe some, especially the last few can't be found or wouldn't want to be found.

Some may no longer be living.

I've searched ever since I got on the net, found tons of family genealogy, but never them. Maybe I shouldn't put their names here, but a search engine could pick them up. Mod can delete if inappropriate.

I'm not interested in paying anyone to track them down. If I'm supposed to find them, I will. I had a hard time remembering the names of a few, but finally did. So MANY memories from that time.

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