Out of the deepest regard for our fallen leader, I'd like to reminisce about the time I saw Ron Reagan at a dumpy little restaurant in San Francisco. This was about '98, I suppose. We'd wandered through Chinatown, looking for a place to eat. Stopped in a fancy place with George Bush the First's picture in the lobby but quickly moved on, not in protest but because that's not the kind of place where you want to eat in Chinatown; you want a place w/ the head-on roasted ducks hanging in the window.
So we found one of those and settled in for some authentic chow. Soon I noticed a scrawny guy seated alone, reading a paperback as he ate. It was unmistakably the president's son. No, not Bush the Second -- he was probably still snorting cocaine in Texas back then. It was Ronnie Jr. (Sorry, I know the "Jr" must be a letdown for you. Imagine how we felt.) Anyway, I am not one of those people who accost any "celebrity" they meet, not that I considered RR Jr. a celebrity. Even if I'd see someone I deeply admire eating Kung Pao chicken, I could resist the urge to ask him or her to scribble his or her name on a piece of paper. I'm just funny that way.
So we sat there minding our business, pretty successfully pretending not to notice there was a quasi-famous person in our presence. The place was empty except for our party of four, RR Jr., and a 30ish woman also dining alone. Sure enough, this woman could not contain herself. She approached Reagan as he ate and read. He took it OK the first time, smiling pleasantly. But then a few minutes passed, and she came over again. What on earth could she have had to say that didn't get said in the first fly-by? "Do you still dance ballet?" "I loved when you danced in your skivvies a la Tom Cruise on Saturday Night Live?" "C'mon, that wife of yours was a beard, wasn't she?" "Were you worried your father would start lobbing missiles at the Russians?"
Whatever her gambit, Reagan clearly did not appreciate her follow-up attention. He said something curt, gestured dismissively, and then went back to eating. She didn't seem to have said anything politically sensitive -- "Isn't it terrible how the working class is screwed thanks to what your father started?" -- because her demeanor was too congenial for that. So fawning, in fact, that she clearly expected better from the object of her affection. She stalked away in a huff.
Posted by Vernam at June 11, 2004 07:54 AM | TrackBack