Reagan’s real legacy is the man himself

The Washington Examiner ^ | April 4, 2009 | Byron York

[Scanian]

Santa Barbara, California -- You drive up a steep, rough and winding road to reach Ronald Reagan's ranch in the Santa Ynez mountains. For eight years, from 1981 to 1989, this place north of Santa Barbara was the Western White House; Reagan spent nearly a year of his time in office here. Now, what he called Rancho del Cielo is pretty much deserted.

But the ranch, tended by a lone caretaker, is still much like it was when Reagan was alive. It's not open to the public; these days, the old adobe house and 688 surrounding acres are owned and carefully maintained by the conservative Young America's Foundation. The group doesn't have the staff or resources to conduct public tours, but they were kind enough to take me on a visit one afternoon last week.

The first thing that strikes you as you approach the house is how modest it is. The main part of the building was constructed in 1871. Even after Reagan added a couple of rooms when he bought it in 1975, the whole house only measured about 1,500 square feet.

The floors are covered in a brick-pattern linoleum. ("He laid it himself," my guide tells me.) The furniture is plain and comfortable; there are a couple of chairs upholstered in an orange-and-brown patchwork pattern that could have come out of any middle-class American den of the 1970s. There is western art on the walls.

[browniexyz]

Hear, hear!

[knarf]

Which is why America is falling ... the few good men are that ... few ... and far between.

I can't begin to explain the frustration I feel for being a transgressional youth (how's THAT for newspeak?) and not being more politically active.

[Bahbah]

He’s talking to Bill Bennett about this piece now.

Reagan was a truly special man.

[Free State Four]

The tougher question is where they will find a man like Ronald Reagan again.

Alaska.

[imintrouble]

I wonder if the state conservatives seem to find themselves is a signal something needs to morph into something new?

Change is a flag on the highway of life - if we are resistant to change we never learn, never see the horizon of another challenge, and worse: never grow in mind and in spirit.

We are constantly fighting the results of an education system which teaches from the tiniest of tots until the graduate level in universities one major ideology - whether we admit it or not - there are few people who attend public institutions who are not grounded in liberalism and ‘community’ sacrificing the individual freedoms and allowances for using our best and brightest to seek all avenues worth exploration, rather than bland conformation.

Let’s seize the tragedy to excel - for if we remain divided as a nation - rarely in agreement on important issues - we stand to lose what this nation has shed its blood for in the past 200 years or more.

[blessu]

I have visited this place and the article is correct; it offers a clear insight into Reagan the man. He could have built a mansion or a big lodge. Instead he enjoyed a little place that looks like something your gardener would live in. It doesn’t even have a guest bedroom. If you go to Google Earth and type “Reagan Ranch” you’ll see it high in the mountains.

It is simple, rustic, charming, modest, sturdy, and unassuming. There is literally a little one-story adobe house with a few small rooms. Reagan loved the place. It suited him. I think he spent 30% of his entire presidency there. He chopped wood. He rode his horse. He drove his old beat-up Jeep. He cleared brush. He mended wooden fences. I noticed in the tiny master bedroom two sets of cowboy boots next to the beside; one pair were his, one pair were Nancy’s. On the bedside tables were two leather-bound Bibles.

I was completely enchanted with this place; it was obviously a refuge for him and Nancy, and speaks volumes about the kind of man he was.