For Girl, Line Into Library Comes Up Short

Fair? No, it wasn’t fair.

But with some 42,000 people lining up to file past Richard Nixon’s closed casket to pay their respects, someone had to be the last in line.

And someone had to be the first locked out.

The last person let into the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Wednesday was Bill Gormley, 43, a Coast Guard veteran who rode 170 chilly miles on his motorcycle and waited in line for three hours.

The unlucky one--the person standing just behind Gormley--was 10-year-old Stephanie Rivers of Lakewood. She had written her fifth-grade history report on Nixon and had begged her mother to take her to the Nixon library so she could witness history.

Instead, Stephanie became sort of a historical footnote herself.

“We really would have liked to get in, but it was kind of exciting having the line cut off right there,” said her mother, Susan Rivers, 34. “It was pretty crazy. It’s kind of a neat feeling. We’re glad we went. It was worth it.”

Stephanie wasn’t too disappointed, either. Someone gave her a funeral program and she hurried off to school for show-and-tell.

“It was a part of history, and I felt like I should be there and be a part of it,” Stephanie explained later at home.

Tuesday night, Stephanie begged her mother to take her to the Nixon library to wait in line overnight. Rivers thought that was impractical.

Wednesday, Stephanie woke up early and clicked on the TV to watch the news, then rushed to tell her mother that the line in front of the library seemed shorter.

They left the house about 8:30 a.m. and arrived about 9:15. It wasn’t a long wait.

Shortly before 10:30 a.m., police began counting the number of people waiting to get into the library. They stopped at Gormley and told those behind him--several thousand at least--to disperse.

An elderly woman dressed in black shook her finger wildly at a tall officer, lecturing him on the injustice of his chosen cutoff point.

A triumphant Gormley said moments after a police guard drew the line behind him, “I came thinking I would (get in). All night long I dreamed I would get in. He was my commander in chief when I was in the service and I wanted to pay my respects to him.”

Gormley said it was all worth it--worth getting up at 5 a.m. in Ridgecrest, Calif., worth freezing on the motorcycle ride to Yorba Linda, and worth listening for hours to dubious security guards saying he would never make it into the library.

An understated man wearing jeans, a yellow golf shirt and a red-and-black checked lumberjack shirt with a hole in the back, Gormley entered the lobby of the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace at 10:40 a.m. He removed his National Rifle Assn. cap and gazed at the flag-draped coffin of the man he had so admired, then looked at the hundreds of floral sprays well-wishers had sent from around the world.

Then, it was his turn to walk past the casket.

“It was overwhelming. I’m overwhelmed by all this. I don’t know what to say,” Gormley told a crush of reporters later. “I did stop and pause and said a little prayer. But that’s between him and I.”

Neither Gormley nor the Riverses planned well enough or came early enough to be sure they would get in. Others more determined or with more flexible schedules came to the Nixon library on Tuesday--when the viewing began.

Like the thousands who preceded them and followed in the seemingly endless line that snaked through the normally quiet neighborhood surrounding the library, Gormley and Susan Rivers chatted to pass the time.

“We were right across the street from the (library) fountain,” Rivers recalled. “They let the rest of the people in front of us go, and then they said that was it. They weren’t letting anybody else in.”

Rivers said she does not care much about politics. She was in high school during the Nixon era and does not remember much.

But a couple of months ago, Stephanie came home with an assignment. She had to write a report about Nixon, so they took a family trip to the Nixon library and surveyed the grounds.

Stephanie fell in love with the history of it all.

“He liked to debate, and I do too in class,” Stephanie explained as she watched the funeral on television Wednesday afternoon. “His life was really neat to read about and write a report on.”

She got a B.