justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

 My Experience with President Reagan

Former President Ronald Reagan’s name has increasingly come up as Republican candidates in the 2016 election strive to associate their platform with that of the former president. Also, the recent passing of President Reagan’s wife, Nancy, has contributed to remembrances of the “good old days” in the 1980s, and earlier.

Regardless of my particular political leanings, especially as they relate to what Governor Reagan did to our state, I have my own personal, very special remembrance of him. He served as a judge of my school’s Great Snail Race in 1974, when he was governor of California. My 3^rd grade class in Concord was sponsoring its snail race for the 4^th year, an event designed to add a little excitement for our science unit on mollusks. (The movie, The Great Race, came out about 10 years earlier, so we borrowed “The Great Snail Race” moniker as a marketing move to add a little pizazz to our event.)

One important aspect of our snail race unit was letter writing to politicians, high profile members of the media, and sports personalities, asking them to come judge our race … a race that was usually over in less than 2 minutes. The local mayor judged the first year, our local assemblyman came the next, but in the 4^th year, upon reading the letter from my student Jenna Holt, someone on Governor Reagan’s staff thought this would be a good PR event, as the Governor was starting his run for the Republican presidential nomination of 1976.

Interesting side note: The political climate of the time was not quite as volatile as today, but it was close. It was during the time the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) had kidnapped and brain washed Patty Hearst, daughter of news titan Randolph Hearst. And, the SLA had a warehouse less than six miles from our school! (The Governor’s secret service staff completed background checks on all of us at the school.)

Our student body president, Todd Lichti, greeted the Governor. Jenna, “Miss Snail” for 1974, took the Governor by the hand and escorted him to the playground, where the twelve qualifying snails and their coaches were waiting, along with over 600 people who wanted to see the Governor. (Once word spread the Governor would be attending, it was quite interesting to see so many politicians, who had originally declined my students’ invitations, show their true colors by contacting us to see if they could still come… and be seen by the five television networks and at least a dozen news outlets that were covering our “great” event.)

Our Great Snail Race chairman, Matt, informed the governor of his duties: to say “go” - the signal for the contestants to place their snails in the center of their circular race “track”, and to raise his flag (we’d made for each judge) when he saw the first snail crawl off their track. (We had learned that snails could be both boy and girl, which is why I used the word “their”).

The winner was Speedy, streaking off his track in a time of one minute, 47 seconds, coached by a first grader named Thomas, who’d just enrolled in our school a week before. Thomas was all smiles, posing for pictures with his snail and the Governor. Governor Reagan presented the school a jar full of his favorites – Jelly Belly jellybeans – complete with the state seal on the apothecary jar!

So for one shining hour, Governor Reagan was like the Pied Piper, greeting all the students and visiting all the classrooms. He was a very welcomed visiting dignitary to my suburban school.