POTUS 40 turns 100

I watched a bit of the celebration of Ronald Reagan's 100th b-day celebration on CNN while I was on the treadmill yesterday. Perhaps the most amusing part was the end to Gary Sinise's speech when he said: "You know being here it doesn't feel like he's gone. It doesn't feel like one hundred years." Wow! I didn't realize Gary Sinise was that old!

Ronald Reagan was the president from the time I was Lelia's age (10)until I was in college. So, of course, I am saturated with many memories of his presidency. I remember the day the Iranian hostage situation ended. I remember what I did when I found out he had been shot. I still have the photograph I took of his boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois. I remember standing in the outfield of Forest Park's little league fields with my elementary school class and watching the presidential motorcade heading down the Eisenhower Expressway into Chicago.

And since it was Reagan who was responsible for my teenage  Jelly Belly obsession (cherry, watermelon, blueberry were my favorites), we made a trip to our local Kroger yesterday afternoon to get a stash. After dinner last night we found Ronald Reagan's first inaugural speech on-line. Everytime he made reference to the United States or America we each snagged a bean. [Since we still had quite a few left over, we finished them off as we listened to the SuperBowl.]

For inquiring minds: The stamp above is being released by the US Postal Service this week in an event in Dixon, IL which you can watch live. Being an on-again-off-again stamp collector, I do intend to purchase a few. Then, I'll write letters to each of my kids and put them in envelopes with the Reagan stamp which I'll send to Dixon, IL to get a first-day cancellation. Pretty nice little momentos for them as they get older, I think.