Monday, October 05, 2009

This is Your (and America's) Life

Talking about WFB at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley today was like hero gridlock. Brecht said, unhappy is the country that needs a hero, and one knows what he meant. But there is enough unhappiness in life always to require them.

Touring the splendid library before the talk, I felt, first, the vertigo of one's life becoming history. Pop nostalgia gives a variant of this feeling — we all watched the Brady Bunch! (I didn't, but still.) This was real history, which I had experienced. There were sections of the Berlin Wall; I got a chunk in a lucite cube at a party at the German consulate (no East or West any more) in New York City shortly after the Wall fell. There were shots of Reagan at the 1984 convention; I covered it. There was a replica of his Oval Office; Mona Charen showed me the real one after hours, and of course she and many of my friends, older and younger, got to see it much more often.

I felt, second, the pastness of the past. The Reagan Library has the airplane that was Air Force One for every president from Nixon to GHW Bush (how did the Reaganites nab it?). When you see all the gear (including the football) behind the cockpit, you realize that all of its functions could be performed on your cell. The telephones attached to the arms of seats look like Stanley Steamers, or ox yokes.

A hardy perennial bloomed in the Q&A after my talk. After reading RTRP (and Chris's book), one man felt "disappointed" with Bill. Do we really expect perfection of those we admire? I said, unless you're writing the Gospels, you will have disappointing things to say in any biography. Few will portray a man who was also as lively, as high-spirited, and as generous as WFB.

10/05 08:42 PMShare