My Little Tribute to Nancy Reagan

I lived in Southern California for four years and saw only a handful of celebrities. By far my biggest celebrity moment was seeing Ronald and Nancy Reagan. They were three or four years out of the White House, and I was a college student at UCLA. It would be fun to say I just bumped into them, but the truth is that I was a bit of a stalker.

When a friend happened to mention that the Reagans went to his church, I was intrigued. These were before the days when you jumped on the internet to find out everything about a person. Ronald Reagan's church-going habits were not public information, or at least not that I knew of. But now I had an "in," someone who could tell me where and when to show up to have The Granddaddy of Them All in celebrity sightings. I couldn't resist. I recruited my friend Karin as a co-stalker, and we made the plan. We arrived early one Sunday morning at Bel Air Pres and strategically positioned ourselves in our pew. Apparently the Reagans sat in the same seats every week, and we would be right behind them. Lucky for us, our advance work paid off, and they slid in just before the service began, inches in front of us.

Of course they weren't alone. Two well-dressed, unsmiling men accompanied them. I watched them during the prayer, and they never once closed an eye. Secret Service agents are smart like that, I guess. If someone's going to take out a former president in church, in all likelihood it's going to happen during a prayer. They also didn't shake hands during the greeting portion of the service. They stood completely still, watchful, barely human. The Reagans shook hands with plenty of people, but not with Karin and me. Maybe they were used to having wide-eyed, gawking strangers in the pew behind them. They only greeted their friends. I can understand.

I don't remember a thing about the service that day. I can't recall what the pastor looked like or anything he said. But I can perfectly remember Nancy Reagan. She was the tiniest woman I'd ever seen. My grandmother was five-feet on her tiptoes and weighed 95 pounds dripping wet, but Nancy Reagan was even smaller. And her dress was so beautifully tailored that it made her waist look 15 inches around. It was her skin, though, that most amazed me. She would have been a little over 70 at the time. Eight of those years had been White House years, and we all know the toll those take on a person's youth. Still, she had the most beautiful skin I can ever recall seeing. It was like porcelain. She looked like a doll made of fine china, sitting in a glass cabinet in some overpriced store. She was perfect. I couldn't take my eyes off her, even though she was sitting next to the man I had come to see. He was pretty grand, too, but nothing like Nancy. She took my breath away.

I was just a kid when the Reagans were in office. I remember very little of what they accomplished, other than "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall," and "Just Say No." But I do remember thinking they were classy, even a bit heroic. They were Hollywood stars who brought their glamour and beauty to the White House. They also brought dignity and honor to the presidency. Probably it's a good thing Nancy won't be around to see what becomes of it down the road.

Farewell, elegant Nancy. You gave me the sighting of a lifetime and a good story to tell my grandchildren.