RICHARD NIXON: 1913-1994 : The Lines and Memories Were Both Long : Mourners: More than 42,000, some waiting eight hours, braved the night’s chill to view the closed casket. ‘We just prayed for him to have a peaceful rest,’ one said.

While Richard Nixon’s funeral featured the dignitaries, the night before belonged to people like Diana Acompo, who stood in line for more than five hours in the darkness, bundled against the chill to view the former President’s casket.

Acompo, 20, had flown from Hayward late Tuesday and got in line just after 2 a.m. outside the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace. She had a Nixon medallion around her neck and carried a Nixon pin tied with a black ribbon.

“I’ve idolized him since I was a little girl, since I was 10 or 11 years old,” she said. “It was his spirit. He never gave up. In September I got his autograph. It was the highlight of my life.”

She joined more than 42,000 mourners who came to pay respects to Nixon in a steady marathon from 3 p.m. Tuesday to late Wednesday morning.

The mourners were black, white, Latino, Asian, old and even those born after Nixon left office. And they stood in lines that snaked along Yorba Linda’s streets for three miles and weaved into three cul de sacs that the crowd dubbed “The Twilight Zone,” “The black hole” and the “cul de sac from hell.”

Some people waited for more than eight hours, singing songs, and making new friends as they inched toward the library under cloudy skies.

Among the early arrivals Wednesday were David and Lily Kuoch, of Anaheim. They both had to be at work at hotel jobs by 5:45 a.m. But the couple, who fled war-ravaged Cambodia in 1975, were determined to say goodby.

“We just prayed for him to have a peaceful rest,” said Lily Kuoch, 53.

Authorities said it was a peaceable gathering, except for an incident at 6 a.m. when officers detained an unidentified 45-year-old man who acted strangely and told Brea police, he came to “save President (Clinton).”

Overnight, a bevy of entrepreneurs sprung up, giving the suburban neighborhood a carnival flair. Hot chocolate was going for $1. Using a bathroom, $2. And “Day of Mourning” T-shirts were selling for $10.

Less than a block from where food and beverage sales were booming, Bill Zavala gave out free hot chocolate and cookies from his front yard.

“The whole thing about this is to respect the President,” said Zavala, a 39-year-old graphic designer. “We live around here, and we just want people to be comfortable.”

Michelle Brando, 24, had left a Hollywood movie party that she said Madonna attended, and raced to Yorba Linda. But Brando, no relation to Marlon, turned back after hearing the casket was closed.

“I’m not going to wait six hours to see a box,” said Brando, who added that, other than a high school term paper about “Watergate,” he knew nothing about Nixon. “How do we know he’s even in it?”

Ray Hunnicutt, 54, of San Clemente, a third cousin of Nixon’s, met the former President at a family reunion when Hunnicutt was 10. At 4 a.m. Wednesday, Hunnicutt and his son, Josh, 19, were waiting to pay their respects.

“He used to play golf right in front of our house. I’d never gotten to talk to him, and this gives me one last time to say goodby,” said Josh Hunnicutt.

Others joked in line, quoting and misquoting the former President to keep their spirits up.

“Never look back. Always look forward. That’s what Nixon said,” shouted one woman.

“Never give up. That’s what he said,” another countered.

But some mourners had no choice. They were turned away just before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday when the viewing was ended.

“I’m from San Bernardino,” said Norma Bollacker, 49. “I got up way before nine in the morning. I ate breakfast and I got gas in the car. But I didn’t get in.”

Raquel Cisneros of Norwalk had spent an hour just trying to park her car early Wednesday. Then she waited in line more than two hours, only to be turned away by Orange County sheriff’s deputies.

“I’m so disappointed,” Cisneros said. “My sister’s father-in-law owns a barber shop in Quito, Ecuador, where I’m from. They said that Nixon visited the shop when he was President. After that, her father-in-law renamed it, ‘Nixon Barber Shop.”’

Many people were fervent in their determination to honor Nixon. Diana Acompo had quit her job over it.

“You either loved him or you hated him,” she said.

She loved him.

Many of her co-workers at an Office Depot store in the Bay Area hated him. In the heat of an argument Monday over Nixon’s role in the Vietnam War, Acompo stormed out.

“I just quit,” she said. “I always knew what kinds of mixed emotions people had, but I thought they should at least have some respect now.”

Was the wait worth it?

Jan Stephens, 42, of Chino Hills thought so, when she left the viewing sobbing.

“It was really an honor to go in and be in the presence of him,” Stephens said. “He was such a good President. I remember him helping in China, and his foreign policy was excellent. I think he was a great man.”