Ronald Reagan--Silent, but Never to Be Forgotten

A great disappointment in this day and age is not being able to hear from Ronald Reagan. Here he lives, right smack-dab in Los Angeles, an illustrious figure in state and U.S. history. Just to chitchat with the man--as sand spills through the 1900s’ hourglass--would be a treat as sweet as a jellybean.

His legacy is robust, at least, as one wishes Reagan himself to be. It will be five years come November that he penned his touching letter to the American public acknowledging his Alzheimer’s disease, a memento mori encased in his presidential library in Simi Valley for all to read.

We have heard little since then. Nancy Reagan remains the trusty proxy, burdened from time to time by having to refute as Twain-like exaggerations reports of her husband’s decline. When last he was rumored to be in dire straits, Reagan’s family replied that he was up the street, eating ice cream.

Nevertheless, what a pity we cannot hear from the president himself.

Had we the pleasure of his company today, we would ask what Reagan thinks of a new commemorative license plate proposed in his honor.

A bill drafted by Tony Strickland, an assemblyman from Thousand Oaks, for a Ronald Reagan license plate has just been passed 8 to 1 by a Senate appropriations committee. “A perfect way of honoring a great Californian,” Strickland calls it, knowing how much we love our license plates out here.

A set of plates would cost $50, with proceeds to go toward educational programs at the Reagan library. Sounds fine. I’d drive with one for the Gipper.

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You can see for miles and miles as your car wends up the road to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. From a hilltop where you park, there is no other structure visible anywhere in the distance. Only dusty trails, red-rock canyons and a sun above their peak that gives the whole scene a celestial glow.

For someone visiting here for the first time, simply on a whim, it is quite a sight to behold.

As presidential landmarks go, one tends to think more of a Monticello mansion and a man who lived there, or of a log cabin in Kentucky, where another man was born, rather than of a modern-day fellow still living in L.A., eating ice cream.

Here he stands, though, large as life.

A head-to-toe bronze of Ronald Wilson Reagan awaits you at the door. Created by a sculptor with the wonderful name of Glenna Goodacre, it is titled “After the Ride,” and depicts Reagan in full cowpoke regalia, boots and Stetson and all. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this is not.

The statue was presented by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, which suits these surroundings perfectly. This is no Met, no Louvre. This is a Westerner’s spread.

True, we do know--or are soon reminded by a library exhibit--that Reagan is not originally from these parts. “I was born in 1911, in a flat above a bank in Tampico, Ill.,” says Reagan’s familiar voice, via tape-recording. “My father ran up the stairs, took a look at me and said: ‘He looks like a fat little Dutchman. But who knows, he might grow up to be president of the United States some day.’ ”

A fine tale, true or tall.

Reagan the cowboy at heart is personified by displays from Rancho del Cielo, his “ranch in the sky” in the Santa Ynez Valley that felt more like home to him than the White House did. We see the saddles, the tack, the Truluv canoe with its wooden paddles.

Then a wall of his magazine covers. A wall of his film posters. A box of toy soldiers on an Oval Office desk. A shrine of Nancy’s gowns. A jellybean machine. And films of the president, telling jokes about Russians, telling stories about baseball, talking the way we were so accustomed to hearing him talk.

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I was enjoying this ride down Ronald Reagan’s memory lane when I came to a case with his Nov. 5, 1994, letter in it.

Reading his handwriting, slanting as it did unsteadily, I for some reason decided to jot it down. A tour guide told me it would be easier to copy a typewritten reproduction alongside. But I appreciated the effort involved in this one more.

A woman, a tourist, stood by us, also reading. She suddenly began to cry.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I just miss him,” she said, and the guide guided her away.

Not until this exact moment did I realize that I miss Ronald Reagan too. And he is still with us, just up the street.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com