A Tribute to the Gipper
I know...the long awaited entry from Matt Graham is finally here. The last week has been extremely busy with work, hanigng out with friends, and my Aunt Dawnell's wedding on Saturday. So far summer has been fantastic! Something did happen last week though ...
I was sitting with my Dad's friends from Lancaster. We were playing Euchre and I was of course winning. The Aufdenkampe family had arrived about a half hour before and everyone wasl in the kitchen eating my Mom's wonderful graduation. As I layed down my two bars, taking the last two tricks, I noticed my mom walking solemnly over to me. I could tell she had something on her mind, but I dismissed it and continued to shuffle the cards. It was from my mother's voice that I found out Ronald Reagan had passed away.
I think I recieved about 5-8 phone calls of people asking if I was alright. Like Rush Limbaugh said, I knew it was going to happen, but I still felt a great remorse when Dutch died.
Over the years I have had several people become inspirations to the way I choose to live my life. Some are friends, some are family members, but the one that stands out the most is Ronald Reagan. In order to understand why this is the case, you must first understand who Ronald Reagan the man.
Politics aside, there are few great characteristics about Ronald Reagan.
Reagan always exemplified “Golden Rule” behavior to everyone he came in contact with. I challenge you to find one person Reagan was ever rude, deceitful, or condescending towards. In one of the many books I read this week, the author tried to find someone of the sort. He did find a restaurant owner who said Reagan had once completely yelled at him for loosing Reagan’s reservation during his Hollywood acting days. The author inquired what the owner thought of Reagan. The owner replied, “Well, Reagan came back the next day and apologized.” That’s the kind of man Reagan exemplified and is something we should all strive to live up to
Reagan always stood up for what he believed in and his word was never broken. An example of this is the air traffic controller fiasco. In the early eighties, the air traffic controller union threatened to strike unless the current administration increased their wages by nearly 100%. Reagan offered a 50% increase instead as 100% was ridiculous. The air traffic controllers still threatened to walk off the job if Reagan did not give them what they wanted. Reagan said that those who decided to strike would immediately be fired. Now you must understand the importance of air traffic controllers to our economy. I they decided to strike, air traffic would be immediately halted and this was during a time where the economy was getting worse. The union decided to call Reagan’s bluff and walked out of airports across the country. Reagan paced around the oval office for an hour deciding what he should do, but finally decided that he had to stick by his word…and fired everyone who walked off of their job that day.
Reagan also had an astounding faith in God. He believed everything happened for a reason and a reason could be found in anything. One can truly find the way God touched his life through many events, but none compare to his near fatal day in March, 1981 where a bullet went flying into his lung tissue. Even he recognized the only way he lived was through divine intervention.
On June 5th, 2004, we not only lost a president, we lost a great man who exemplified the best of human nature.
I was sitting with my Dad's friends from Lancaster. We were playing Euchre and I was of course winning. The Aufdenkampe family had arrived about a half hour before and everyone wasl in the kitchen eating my Mom's wonderful graduation. As I layed down my two bars, taking the last two tricks, I noticed my mom walking solemnly over to me. I could tell she had something on her mind, but I dismissed it and continued to shuffle the cards. It was from my mother's voice that I found out Ronald Reagan had passed away.
I think I recieved about 5-8 phone calls of people asking if I was alright. Like Rush Limbaugh said, I knew it was going to happen, but I still felt a great remorse when Dutch died.
Over the years I have had several people become inspirations to the way I choose to live my life. Some are friends, some are family members, but the one that stands out the most is Ronald Reagan. In order to understand why this is the case, you must first understand who Ronald Reagan the man.
Politics aside, there are few great characteristics about Ronald Reagan.
Reagan always exemplified “Golden Rule” behavior to everyone he came in contact with. I challenge you to find one person Reagan was ever rude, deceitful, or condescending towards. In one of the many books I read this week, the author tried to find someone of the sort. He did find a restaurant owner who said Reagan had once completely yelled at him for loosing Reagan’s reservation during his Hollywood acting days. The author inquired what the owner thought of Reagan. The owner replied, “Well, Reagan came back the next day and apologized.” That’s the kind of man Reagan exemplified and is something we should all strive to live up to
Reagan always stood up for what he believed in and his word was never broken. An example of this is the air traffic controller fiasco. In the early eighties, the air traffic controller union threatened to strike unless the current administration increased their wages by nearly 100%. Reagan offered a 50% increase instead as 100% was ridiculous. The air traffic controllers still threatened to walk off the job if Reagan did not give them what they wanted. Reagan said that those who decided to strike would immediately be fired. Now you must understand the importance of air traffic controllers to our economy. I they decided to strike, air traffic would be immediately halted and this was during a time where the economy was getting worse. The union decided to call Reagan’s bluff and walked out of airports across the country. Reagan paced around the oval office for an hour deciding what he should do, but finally decided that he had to stick by his word…and fired everyone who walked off of their job that day.
Reagan also had an astounding faith in God. He believed everything happened for a reason and a reason could be found in anything. One can truly find the way God touched his life through many events, but none compare to his near fatal day in March, 1981 where a bullet went flying into his lung tissue. Even he recognized the only way he lived was through divine intervention.
On June 5th, 2004, we not only lost a president, we lost a great man who exemplified the best of human nature.