Get-Well Cards Still Flooding White House

They said it with flowers.

And teddy bears and videocassettes and a sign 10-stories high.

Since undergoing cancer surgery July 13, President Reagan has received more than 55,000 get-well cards and letters and 1,000 gifts, ranging from home video recordings of ministers’ Sunday sermons and people singing all kinds of songs to more than 20 books by Louis L’Amour, one of the President’s favorite authors.

Comedienne Joan Rivers sent a batch of balloons, and someone from Greentown, Pa., sent a tape recording of a 1939 Glenn Miller Band performance, featuring “Moonlight Serenade.” The Reagans are fans of big band music.

One of the largest gifts was a get-well sign 2 1/2 feet wide by 10 stories high, filled with the signatures of what seemed to be the entire town of Hattiesburg, Miss. Another mammoth correspondence was the handmade card signed by 4,000 sailors on board the aircraft carrier America.

Forty extra volunteers have been added to the White House mail office to send thank-you notes while about 3,000 greetings continue to pour in each day.

Reagan called the outpouring of greetings “the best medicine I can have.”

Reagan’s favorite get-well wish so far is a three-frame cartoon strip from Peanuts artist Charles Schulz, showing Snoopy sitting on the roof of his doghouse, typing the President a letter.

A woman from Galena, Ill., wrote the President that she had had surgery four years ago and she warned him not to get back on his feet too soon. She added that she loves Mrs. Reagan’s clothes.

A recorded greeting from Sarasota, Fla., featured a polka-style arrangement of a song written especially for the President entitled, “Hang in There, Mr. President.” And some sixth-graders from Catharpian, Va., sent a recording of themselves singing “God Bless the U.S.A,” which they understood was his favorite song.

A videocassette production firm in Providence, R.I., sent a tape of man-on-the-street interviews with 125 passers-by in front of a variety store in nearby Cranston. Nine-year-old Danielle Desnoyers, sitting next to her pet beagle, Princess, said, “Hi, Mr. President. I hope you feel well soon and so does my dog.” The producers of the film were so heartened by the enthusiastic thank-you note they received that they decided to make a tape to send to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.