[AT] Reagan Remembered (by Patti Davis) Off topic but greatreading

Mon Jun 7 18:05:05 PDT 2004

Frank I don't think it was politics until  you made it so.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Frank" <gremaux at tein.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 7:24 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Reagan Remembered (by Patti Davis) Off topic but
greatreading

> you might have liked him but he did me no favors on my social security
>
> maybe this is not the place for politics
>
> Frank
> gremaux at tein.net
> Central Montana
> www.angelfire.com/mt/deeregp/index.html
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Danny Tabor" <dannytabor2000 at yahoo.com>
> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group"
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 12:20 PM
> Subject: Re: [AT] Reagan Remembered (by Patti Davis) Off topic but
> greatreading
>
>
> >
> > --- DAVIESW739 at aol.com wrote:
> > > I got this off AOL today it is one of the most
> > > beautiful things a wayward
> > > daughter could say about her father.
> > >
> > > Even if  you hated Reagan please read this as it
> > > pertains to all of us who
> > > are getting  old and may face the same  fate.
> > >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Thanks Walt for sharing this with us. It hits home for
> > us young folks to. Not only because I come from a
> > tight knit family but also President Reagan (ray-gun)
> > was a childhood heroe of mine. Still is. As a young
> > boy I was glued to the television grasping to every
> > word President Reagan spoke. "President Reagan's on!!!
> > Don't change that channel!!!"  Thank you again.
> > Danny
> >
> >
> >
> > Reagan  Remembered
> > > Months Before the Ex-President's Death, His Daughter
> > > Shared  Memories
> > >
> > > By Patti Davis, People
> > >
> > > What was once my father's office  is now his
> > > bedroom. On top of the desk
> > > where he rested his elbows as sunlight  slanted
> > > through the window, where he wrote
> > > his last letter to America announcing  that he had
> > > Alzheimer's in 1994,
> > > bedsheets are often stacked â?" ready to be used
> > > for a change of the hospital bed
> > > where he now stays around the clock. When he is
> > > awake, which is not that often,
> > > he can gaze at the trees outside the window. The
> > > other day, my mother and
> > > the nurse who was on duty moved the bed to the open
> > > doorway so he could look
> > > into the back garden, where the sun was making
> > > prisms  on the leaves after a
> > > morning of rain. "Did he seem to notice the
> > > different  view?" I asked my mother.
> > > "I don't know," she said.
> > > People often ask me how  my father is doing. They
> > > want to know if he still
> > > recognizes me, if he still  recognizes any of us. It
> > > makes me realize that my
> > > mother and I have been so  protective of his
> > > condition since he became ill â?"
> > > almost a decade now â?" that it  has allowed people
> > > to imagine he is still talking,
> > > still walking, still able to  stumble into a moment
> > > of clarity. But it would
> > > be a disservice to every family  who has an
> > > Alzheimer's victim in their
> > > embrace to say any of that is true, and I  don't
> > > believe my father would want us to
> > > lie. Today, we are like many other  families who
> > > come to the bedside of a
> > > loved one and look into eyes that no  longer flicker
> > > with recognition. It
> > > rearranges your universe. It strips away  everything
> > > but the most important truth:
> > > that the soul is alive, even if the  mind is
> > > faltering.
> > > My father is the only man in the house these days,
> > > except  for members of his
> > > Secret Service detail who occasionally come in. It's
> > > a house  of women, now â?"
> > > the nurses, my mother, the housekeepers. Me, when I
> > > am there,  which is
> > > often, since I live only 10 minutes away. When my
> > > brother Ron visits  from Seattle,
> > > or our older brother Michael comes over, the sound
> > > of a male voice  seems to
> > > register with my father. He lifts his eyebrows. Is
> > > it recognition of  his
> > > sons? Curiosity about this new male intruder? I
> > > don't know. We frequently  arrange
> > > dinner around his bed. In fact, it has become the
> > > center of the house.
> > > Everything radiates from that space, whether he is
> > > awake or asleep. It radiates
> > > from the man whose life is thinning to a stream, yet
> > > flows and follows us even
> > > when we drive off the property.
> > > In the room next to my father's, my mother  now
> > > sleeps in a new bed. The
> > > king-size bed they shared for so many years came to
> > > feel vast and empty to her,
> > > so she had it taken away and replaced by a
> > > queen-size bed. Less empty space
> > > across the mattress. Yet it's no relief from  the
> > > loneliness of sleeping alone
> > > after 50 years of rolling over to the person  you
> > > love. She still tiptoes
> > > across the floor if she gets up in the middle of the
> > >  night; her heart forgets that
> > > the other side of the bed is empty. I remember the
> > > day the larger bed was
> > > replaced. I remember the mark on the carpet where
> > > the  king-size bed once was.
> > > It seemed to say everything.
> > > Alzheimer's is a long  series of I-don't-knows. My
> > > father's doctor doesn't
> > > know how he has lived so  long with this disease,
> > > especially after breaking his
> > > hip in January 2001. I  think it's the tenacity of
> > > his soul â?" he just isn't
> > > ready to leave his reunited  family. At a certain
> > > point in time, it might all
> > > come down to this â?" life is  about learning how to
> > > die, how to let go and how to
> > > hold on to what is really  important. One thing that
> > > was so startling about
> > > the TV movie that has gotten so  much publicity is
> > > that it was based on years
> > > of our lives when my mother and I  were often at
> > > war. The script made use of
> > > things I had written at that time,  before I was
> > > able to put my rebelliousness
> > > and political stridency aside. After  reading the
> > > script, she said to me, "I'm
> > > so sorry about the way you were  portrayed." I think
> > > I answered, "Well, we all
> > > came off terribly." But the moment  was not lost on
> > > me. A single sentence can
> > > be a bridge over currents of old  history.
> > > My father will leave, we all know that. There will
> > > be many people  poring
> > > over his political career. There will be debates and
> > > discussions about  his
> > > Presidency. But as a family, we will be elsewhere.
> > > We will walk past an  empty
> > > room. We will be assaulted by the silence, the
> > > emptiness, and we will, I  think,
> > > try hard to listen â?" to echoes, whispers, all
> > > those things that don't  vanish
> > > when a person dies. That is, if you believe in such
> > > things. My father  did. And
> > > that might be his most important legacy for us â?"
> > > what lives on in the  heart.
> > >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Walt  Davies
> > > Cooper Hollow Farm
> > > Monmouth, OR 97361
> > > 503 623-0460
> > >
> > >
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