LOOK WHO’S TALKING: Today is Presidents’ Day,...

LOOK WHO’S TALKING: Today is Presidents’ Day, and if you find yourself waxing nostalgic for Ronald Reagan--or you’ve just got to know more about Millard Fillmore--here’s just the thing: For $49.95, you can get a CD-ROM “talking book” for your computer that will play audio excerpts of Reagan’s speeches and tell you all about our 13th President. SoftBooks Inc. of Lake Forest has sold about 100,000 copies of “The Presidents,” which is not bad, says company President David Mann, even if “a lot of them were bought by makers of CD-ROM drives who gave them away to customers.”

GROVER’S LEGACY: Orange County’s biggest memorial to a President isn’t native son Richard Nixon’s presidential library in Yorba Linda. For sheer size, it’s the 105 square miles of Cleveland National Forest, which runs along the mountainous eastern edge of the county. Named for Grover Cleveland, it was created in 1908. Strangely enough, Orange County didn’t even vote for the Democrat during his successful run for the presidency in 1892: That year, local voters liked Republican Benjamin Harrison.

GOODBY, ABE?: After the Nixon Library and the Cleveland National Forest, the most visible symbol of the presidency in Orange County is the talking Lincoln robot at Disneyland. But for a public uproar three years ago, Disneyland might have replaced old Honest Abe with the Muppets. Now there’s a rumor--denied by the park--that it’s again considering retirement for the 16th President. “Not that I’ve heard,” says a spokesman.

FIRST IN A SERIES: The first presidential candidate to visit what is now Orange County wasn’t here to campaign. The year was 1846, and Col. John C. Fremont scouted the place twice during the Mexican War. “The Great Pathfinder” went on to become the first Republican nominee for the presidency in 1856--only to lose to Democrat James Buchanan. Fremont was the first in a long line of presidential nominees to troop through the county. Says county historian Jim Sleeper: “There’ve been at least two dozen of ‘em.”