EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK -- S.J. Cahn

It was the first class I truly hated.

Despised, really. Dreaded. Felt genuinely stupid in.

Spanish I. My fifth-period class, right after lunch, in the sixth

grade.

And I still remember it for two reasons:

1. The first sentence in Spanish that I learned, “La Carretera

Panamericana es muy larga.” (The Panamerican Highway is very long.)

2. Hearing Ronald Reagan had been shot.

March 30, 1981, was otherwise unremarkable. We’d played volleyball at

lunch. I wasn’t looking forward to listening to Senor Leeds.

The first news came soon after we’d all settled in, which can take

some time when 30 or so 11- and 12-year-olds have just finished running

around a playground. That first news was that Reagan was dead.

Clearer reports followed quickly. The president was only wounded,

though it was unclear how severely. (I don’t think we ever were aware

that Al Haig was briefly in charge of the nation.) By the end of class,

we knew the president was in surgery but out of danger.

I remember it to this day, much as I imagine people remember where

they were when they heard John Kennedy was killed.

The president had been shot. The president. For an 11-year-old, those

words were almost unfathomable.

It wasn’t -- and this will get me blacklisted from most Newport Beach

functions -- because I liked Reagan or agreed with his policies. At that

point, I leaned much more toward my mother’s Democratic beliefs than my

father’s GOP ones.

Even today, I think his trickle-down economics failed, led to the

early ‘90s recession and included tax cuts that unfairly favored the

wealthy; Reagan loosened regulations on mental institutions that flooded

our streets with people who are not capable of holding jobs; and a number

of his brilliant military exploits -- the invasion of Grenada, in

particular -- were ridiculous, dangerous public relations moves.

But Reagan is the first president I can remember in the White House.

Jimmy Carter, somehow, doesn’t make much appearance in my memory. And I

remember Chevy Chase’s ridiculous Jerry Ford impersonation during the

first year of Saturday Night Live far better than I remember Ford.

So it’s Reagan, whether I like it or not, who jumps into my mind when

I think of the presidency: his Morning in America theme; him standing

tall and proud in a cowboy hat; that voice and attitude he could, at

times, turn into pure, firm leadership.

His presence, simply, was that powerful.

Call me impressionable. But he was my country’s leader during my

formative years. And I’m not alone.

For nearly all of the people I talked to in college and graduate

school -- some who leaned so far left they’d be immediately escorted out

of Orange County, let alone Newport Beach -- Reagan loomed largely upon

their psyches, upon their budding ideals of America and certainly on

their idea of what the presidency is or should be.

He was the man they vehemently loved or thoroughly loathed. He proved

their most liberal thoughts true or nurtured their conservatism.

But there was no escaping his shadow.

For that reason alone, as he turns 90 and continues his fight with

Alzheimer’s disease and his recent fall, Reagan should know that he

succeeded in something few others before him, and certainly none since,

have.

He was the president.

* S.J. CAHN is the Daily Pilot city editor.