Going to the casket

Aboard the Chinatown bus from New York to Washington DC, I wonder, why am I travelling four and a half deadpan hours to visit the flag-draped casket of Ronald Reagan in the US Capitol?

It was about 1985, I was 6 years old, when I first learnt the name of America’s president. Back then an eight-year presidential term was more than an eternity. Ronald Reagan was the president.

That’s not to say he was revered in my Danish-Puerto Rican household. From our small Manhattan apartment it was plainly clear that New York’s poorest communities got the short end of the stick in his harpooning of social services. I too come from a family of liberals who “cough and gag in fury” at Reagan as Siva Vaidhyanathan does.

My Reagan memory

openDemocracy’s Washington columnist, John Hulsman, shook hands with Ronald Reagan when he was 16 years old. I met Nancy Reagan at the White House when I was 8.

For two years my father worked as a diplomat at the Danish embassy in Washington DC. One of the perks of being the daughter of a diplomat was special invitations to Nancy’s Christmas parties.

It was the Christmas of 1987 and I was shuttled with a busload of other children dressed in various national costumes to the gates of the White House. We were herded through metal detectors and onto the floor of a lavishly decorated hall. Nancy graciously walked in and sat on the floor with us, smiling for photographers who supplied the front-page picture of the Washington Post the next day.

There, I sat slightly bemused in the background, looking at Nancy and wondering whether Ronnie was going to join us too.

He didn’t.

Instead, Nancy had invited a furry TV-alien named Alf. He used to appear on a weekly comedy show, in the living room of a regular American family that had befriended him. Now, he was in the White House, vividly explaining Christmas on his planet – Melmac – to the glee of us kids.

There were mountains of cookies. And on the way out, Nancy shook hands with every single child and handed us each a giant, white teddy bear (and a bag full of Alf merchandise).

It was memorable. And it’s the closest I ever got to Ronald Reagan himself. Which brings me back to my bus-ride. Why the long journey? And why the willingness to wait hours in line for a peak and a nod at his boxed remains?

An honour of choice

I didn’t go in order to write this article, and certainly not to disrespect the masses of people who came for a last goodbye to someone they genuinely admire. I got closer to the answer later, when speaking to some of the hundreds of people who waited all night to shed a tear for him up close.

All American presidents are entitled to a state funeral, which includes the honour of “lying in state”, having the coffin placed in the centre of the floor under the great dome of the Capitol building, and letting members of the public shuffle past.

Not all presidents wish to have the honour. The Reagans have been laying plans for his funeral since the first days Ronald took office in 1980. According to the New York Times, both Jimmy Carter and George Bush senior also have their funeral plans on file with the military district of Washington DC. Bill Clinton doesn’t.

The first to lie in state was Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The last (before Reagan) was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973. All in all, twenty-nine people have lain there, but none – not even John F. Kennedy’s funeral in 1963 – has ever commanded lines that stretched as far as the eye could see, hordes of police and security officers, and five-hour queues for nearly twenty-four hours.

Waiting for goodbye

By 6am Friday morning the people near the entrance to the Capitol had been waiting in line since midnight. They looked worn, but not defeated.

Everyone I spoke to had either voted for Reagan once, or admired him enough to consider doing so today. Several said they wanted to take part in a moment of history, show their respects to the Reagan family, or say “farewell to a great man”. The only one who was undecided was a woman named Yuan Wang, who said she came because her friend Paul did.

Sean Ryan was wearing star spangled shorts. He drove all the way from Illinois with his wife and four kids. Like John Hulsman, Ryan had had an encounter with Reagan as a young man, at the University of Notre Dame, which counts Reagan among its “subway alumni” (Reagan was given an honorary degree in 1981, after portraying legendary Notre Dame football star George “Gipper” Gipp in a 1940 film). Ryan had the opportunity to shake hands with Reagan and take a picture – something he will never forget.

An elderly Virginia resident standing in line also shook hands with Reagan once – at a party. “It was an awesome experience to meet him,” she said. She proudly told how her 3 year-old grandson has been watching Reagan on the news the past days. He watched so attentively, that when a garbage truck rolled by outside the house one day, he bellowed: “Mr Garbage Man, tear down that wall!”

Of course, several mentioned Reagan’s political achievements, like “winning the cold war”, or “being courageous enough to make the unpopular choice of cutting taxes”, but overall the reasons people offered for why they had come were personal and curried with anecdotes.

Tim Redmond from Maryland wasn’t really old enough to remember Reagan, but his mother carried a signed letter from him in her wallet throughout his childhood. “He was the only actor she ever wrote to, and Reagan responded to her with a personal letter and a signed picture,” he said. Later at university, he joined the same fraternity as Reagan, Tau Kappa Epsilon.

Cathy Vaughan remembers painting a picture at the moment she heard Reagan was shot in 1981. Today, it still hangs on her wall.

The moment of truth

I was told by security that it was too late to join the line at 6am. I spent the morning talking to people who were waiting and shuffling forward towards the entrance. When the end of the line appeared, I latched on to it, and got swept along inside.

I would have been the very last person inside if two men, Jay Danny Cooper from Alabama and John Skudlarek from Virginia, hadn’t waited all night for precisely that title. I politely demoted myself to third-last.

As we approached the Rotunda, I saw tears welling in the eyes of men and women alike. Inside, they saluted, solemnly stared, and marvelled at Reagan’s coffin. It was guarded by immobile, stone-faced soldiers who didn’t appear to as much as breathe. The reverence was contagious.

I found myself thinking less about the man, and more about the time when he used to be around. One woman I had spoken to in the line said that Reagan’s death reminded her of family, growing up, and a lot of people who aren’t there anymore. Reagan is such an icon of a time that is now past. I thought back nostalgically to my childhood and the people I knew then.

I think many felt the same. I was struck by how personal and detached people’s reasons for being there were from the political Reagan. They told me family anecdotes, private ambitions, and about American patriotism and pride – not about the things Reagan did presidentially. Maybe it’s just not polite to talk politics at a funeral, but my feeling was that people came to say a delayed farewell to the 1980s as much as anything.

Outside the Capitol, there was a tent full of notebooks to write condolences. They were to be bound and sent to Nancy as a gift. I scanned the pages and read through page-long letters that people had written. I was at a loss for words. Among the more traditional and polite things one writes, I scribbled: “Thanks for the cookies, Nancy.”