Ronald Reagan

I was my sons age and walking home from school on a rainy day. My mother was out on errands and all the doors were locked at the house. My usual alternative entrance (the basement window) had been locked but my father that weekend and I was stuck outside until my mother got home (We were a lot more safer back in the late 70's early 80's). We had a pop-up camper in our driveway and it was set up to air out as we were getting ready to hit the trails soon so I set up in the camper to stay dry and get a jump on my homework. So here I am sitting at the camper table (that doubles as a bed) working on my spelling sheets with rain hitting the canvas sides and thunder shaking the camper. I reach into one of the many storage areas and pull out a little transistor radio and tune it to 1010WINS (the true NEWS station of New York City and the voice of school closings in the winter months). Those familiar tones go off and the bass voiced man tells me that President Reagan had been shot. My world stopped, this was the first president I knew. Sure I remembered Jimmy Carter but this man (my father's man) was the president when I could truly understand what a president was and now he was shot and possibly dead and I was locked out of my home and my mother was nowhere to be found. What would happen now, who would run the country, who would stop the Russians from invading (we still performed nuclear Bomb drills in school). My entire world was the little speaker from which that voice came out of. While in reality it was only an hour tops, it felt like I was alone in the world for hours until I was told it was OK, the assassination attempt had failed, the gunman was in custody, doctors were working on the President and The Vice President would run the country until he was out of surgery. All was well and mom got back from Waldbaums with several bags (paper in those days) needed to get out of the back of our VW Bus.

RIP Mister President