Thousands Leave Puddles for Politics

A winter storm that slicked and jammed freeways didn’t stop thousands from trekking to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum to celebrate Presidents Day on Monday.

Two Abe Lincoln look-alikes greeted children who had the day off from school as well as parents and other visitors who scurried in from the rain. Reagan and Thomas Jefferson impersonators milled about.

Dubya’s double was nowhere to be found. But a woman who bore a striking resemblance to his mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush, rested her tired feet on a bench.

Looking quite presidential in a white wig and shiny-buttoned blue-and-tan costume, George Washington was a favorite among youngsters. But the man behind the myth, 68-year-old Ted Alexander of Burbank, found himself setting history straight again and again.

“These kids swear up and down that George had wooden teeth and chopped down the cherry tree,” Alexander said, sighing. In the years he’s been portraying the guy on the dollar bill, he has become a bit of an expert. “It’s all a myth,” he said. “All he did was win a war and build the government and invent the presidency.”

At 6-foot-2, Alexander has a commanding presence, although he noted that the real Washington was an inch taller. Washington also wore size 13 shoes, he told one family, grinning: “I only wear a 12.”

Parents ate up his act. “This is really an honor, we’re here in your honor,” Amy Scharch of Studio City told Alexander, as her sons Alex, 8, and Tanner, 11, stood before him, wide-eyed. “We wanted to give our children some culture.”

In the auditorium, one of the two Honest Abes regaled a young crowd with a story about how his two sons used to roughhouse in the White House with their pet sheep. Then he recited the Gettysburg Address. Ariel Prince, an 8-year-old from Calabasas who said she wants to be president when she grows up, listened, mesmerized.

Earlier, in the auditorium, two teams of students from Santa Susana High School, calling themselves the Capitalists and the Communists, faced off against one another in a Presidential Quiz Bowl. It was another blow to communism, as the Capitalists won handily, said Lou Anne Missildine, the Reagan center’s education specialist.

Other parents had hoped to spark their own children’s interest in history but were resigned to less than total success. Christy Brown of Camarillo surveyed her daughters Shandra, 10, and Ciara, 12.

“Shandra’s excited,” she said. “Ciara would rather be at the mall.”

But getting to the mall would have involved going back out in the rain.

With temperatures in the 50s, and as much as an inch of rain falling in some parts of Ventura County during the previous 24 hours, nobody seemed eager to leave. By noon, museum officials counted 3,000 visitors. Another 2,000 were expected by 4 p.m., when local holiday events wrapped up.

Some visitors arrived clutching umbrellas. Those who did not were soaked, having dashed as quickly as they could from their cars to the warmth of the ranch-style center atop a hill near Simi Valley.

More rain is on the way, according to the National Weather Service in Oxnard. There is a 20% chance of showers this morning, with cloudy skies expected throughout the day and high temperatures hovering in the 60s and lows in the 40s. Sunny skies should be back Wednesday, but not for long, said meteorologist Curt Kaplan of the weather service.

A new storm is due on Thursday and Friday, bringing colder temperatures with it, he said.

Early rainfall totals Monday varied between a third of an inch in Oxnard and Thousand Oaks and half an inch in Ventura, according to the weather service. The wettest spot in the county was at Sespe Creek near Fillmore, which received slightly more than an inch of rain in the 24 hours ended at 6 p.m. Monday.

Despite a steady holiday downpour, law enforcement agencies reported only about a dozen fender-benders, including one on the southbound Ventura Freeway in Thousand Oaks shortly before noon that caused backups as far north as Oxnard.

Snow remained on the ground in the back country above Ojai, and forecasters said between 4 and 7 inches more could fall above 6,000 feet today.

For surfers, the best sets will be found on west-facing beaches, including Oxnard Shores, where 6- to 10-foot breakers were anticipated, Kaplan said.