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6 JUN 04: MOURNING IN AMERICA
How stunning, and how strange. I never would have guessed I'd learn about the death of a legendary U.S. President, while watching an ice hockey game being played in the Canadian province of Alberta....
The Tampa Bay-Calgary playoff game was late in the first period Saturday night when I turned it on - and that's where I learned Ronald Reagan had died. ABC's Gary Thorne mentioned a special report would be upcoming between periods. How ironic - since hockey is about the only "cold war" many young people understand anymore.
(Perhaps it's only fitting that I learned of Ronald Reagan's death by watching hockey. He was shot in 1981 on the day of the NCAA basketball finals - and they went ahead and played that night.)
I quickly dialed around my cable-free TV to see other coverage of Ronald Reagan's death. Amazingly, there was none until a special "Dateline NBC" at 10:00 p.m. If Fox News Channel is so pro-Republican, why did Fox-54 keep showing crime shows - to be fair and balanced?
As it happened, I went to the Cascade Hills Church Saturday evening service before learning of President Reagan's death. The mood of the audience DID seem a bit subdued - but I thought it was because Pastor Bill Purvis was out of town, and they weren't sure how hip the guest preacher would be.
The death of Ronald Reagan wasn't mentioned at either church service I attended Saturday. At the 2:30 p.m. service, I assume no one had heard about it. But at Cascade Hills at 6:00 p.m., it wasn't even mentioned during prayers. Of course, there wasn't a prayer of thanks for Columbus High School winning the state baseball title, either....
Understandably, the death of the former President was the top story on Columbus TV news Saturday night. But who told a reporter they remembered Ronald Reagan for his "handling of the Iran hostage crisis?" The hostages in Iran went free on the day President Reagan took office, in 1981!
Muscogee County Republican Party Chair Rob Doll said he'd been praying for Ronald Reagan in recent years, as the former President dealt with Alzheimer's disease. That's nice to know -- but did Doll also pray for former President Clinton to resist temptation?
Isn't it amazing that Ronald Reagan died on the day the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter was christened in Connecticut? The President from Plains now has his own submarine -- and yet the man who kicked him out of the White House upstaged him one last time.
(And not only that, it's the weekend Bill Clinton is rolling out his Presidential memoirs - so many Republicans HAVE to be thinking God is on their side in this election year.)
Ronald Reagan was President during my early years as a journalist. A Kansas City radio station called me in from home on the day he was shot in 1981. My jaw dropped in disbelief in the car, as a different station updated Mr. Reagan's health - then played the song "That's Life," by Frank Sinatra.
I arrived at KJLA Radio that March Monday in 1981 to hear my boss/Program Director read an update on the suspected shooter of President Reagan exactly this way: "The man - if you want to call him that - is...." Keep in mind, this was years before Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity came along.
A year or two later, I worked at KXLS in Alva-Enid, Oklahoma - and President Reagan visited Oklahoma City for a speech. I drove two hours to "The City" to cover the event, only to miss the deadline for media credentials by a few minutes. This was one time when driving at the speed limit did NOT pay off.
I would up covering President Reagan's visit as best I could - standing outside the Oklahoma Capitol building, interviewing both supporters and protesters. It turned out to be an "angle" of the story no one in Oklahoma City had -- but reporters were too busy listening to the President to offer me a job.
(Not meaning to brag, but the two other Enid stations with radio news didn't even bother going to Oklahoma City. One called itself "The News Authority" - but saved its big investigative coverage for things such as "the dog problem.")
Since I promised some "little things" in this issue, let's offer some of them as we close:
+ I marked the 60th anniversary of D Day Saturday night in my own unique way - by going to Captain D's for dinner. The staff at the counter seemed unimpressed.
+ A petition drive began along Cusseta Road to shut down the Boom Boom Room. Maybe nearby residents would feel safer if David Glisson was hired as the club's head of security....
+ Instant Message to Money Back stores: C'mon already! Charging $1.89 for a QUART of milk? No wonder you didn't bother to put a price on the bottle - you knew no one would buy it.
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