Four Titans - An Alt-Experience Presentation

An Alt-Experience Presentation

Four Titans

By Stone Bryson

(Note: This article was written August 9, 2003 while President Ronald Reagan was still alive, and had never been published. After rereading it, I was reminded of the photo discussed in the article - and the feelings I had when looking at it. After checking to see that I still had the picture and taking another look at it, I decided to share this article with you all. The photo discussed in the article was provided to USA Today by Gettys Images)

In the Friday, August 8, 2003 edition of the newspaper USA Today, there was a photo that struck me as remarkable. It was published in conjunction with a major story about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s entry into politics. The article itself discussed Hollywood types who have gotten involved in politics over the years, including Clint Eastwood, the late Sony Bono, and Fred Thompson, to name a few. Also included in the article was the only actor to reach the highest office - Ronald Reagan. It was Reagan who was the subject of the previously-mentioned photo.

But it was not just Reagan who was snapped for posterity. In it you could view, including Reagan, four titans of the 20th century. Taken at a 1970 Republican fund-raiser, the photo included Reagan, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, and John Wayne. Four giants - different backgrounds, different entertainment ventures, together for what was possibly the only time. Martin, one of the original Rat-Packers of the 40’s and 50’s. Hope, the consummate gentleman and comedian, king of the one-liners and tireless supporter of the troops. Wayne, for decades the epitome of rugged American individualism. And Reagan, at the time a former B-movie actor and the governor of the state of California.

The image is startling, to say the least. It’s not the kind of photo you expect to see in a 2003 edition of a national current-events driven newspaper. If a person is an American and has even the remotest tendency to romanticize the past, it causes one to conjure up fictional scenarios of what the conversations between these four men, men who are now seen as larger than life, must have been like. The possibilities are endless.

What also struck me, after the brief romanticism washed over - then past - me, was a note of sadness. All four of them are gone. Wayne in the 1970’s, Martin in the 90’s, Hope this last year [2002], and Reagan - although, as of this writing, still alive in body - taken from us by the sinister doings of Alzheimer’s. We are losing so much of who we were in the 20th century, and I have to wonder if anyone is taking accurate notes, capturing not only the facts of the last century but the essence of those facts.

Then as I put the paper aside I was hit with one final irony, an irony which caused me to give the photo a parting glance. When the photo was taken, Reagan was the lightweight in the picture. Martin, Hope and Wayne had already established themselves as kings, while Reagan was still only a friend of kings. Twenty years after the photo, with the Soviet Union on its way the ash-heap of history and America at its most vital in decades, Reagan had finally joined them. As a matter of fact, in many ways he surpassed them.

After what I thought was my final observation, I laid the newspaper down to throw away with the other readings of the day. Something in me picked it up and held it for a moment. Photos like this one are not seen everyday, you know. After all of 15 seconds thought, I retrieved my scissors and clipped the photo out of the paper, putting it in a keepsake box.

I do not know what caused me to do it, except possibly the feeling that maybe, someday down the line, someone else may want to see the remarkable photo and understand the implications of it. That same person may want to wonder and speculate like I did. And may - just may - want to take accurate notes… of a time-frame that is, courtesy of the revisionist historians, quickly fading away from us.

‘Policies’ - Additional Comments [03/29/2005]

As I mentioned in the above note, this article was written when the 40th president was still alive. Almost ten months later to the date (06/05/2004), President Ronald Wilson Reagan passed away after a very long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Of all the presidents I have studied, of all the those whose presidencies I have lived through, Reagan remains - in mind and heart - my absolute favorite.

This may seem odd to many of those who visit the Experience regularly, because many of Reagan’s ‘policies’ would - if carried out today - be attacked on these very pages. While it is true I do not agree with everything Reagan did, he deserves much more credit than many are willing to give him. It was his ‘policies’ - and his strong stand - that brought down the Berlin Wall and dissolved the Soviet Union. It was his ‘policies’ - via sweeping tax-cuts - that reinvigorated an economy that had been written off as dead by his predecessor. Nothing - not even those revisionist historians - have been able to take these two feats away from him.

With that noted, my affection for Reagan has absolutely nothing to do with his ‘policies.’ What I love about Reagan is that believed - and I mean really believed, with an almost childlike innocence - in the American people. To a poor teenager with little education (or hope), hearing the most powerful man in the free-world tell you daily (via television and radio) that he believed in you was inspiring. Even if some of his ‘policies’ were not the best for everyone, there is no disputing that he believed in all of us. Only one other president, Thomas Jefferson, can wear that mantle, for he - like Reagan - genuinely believed in the American individual.

This is why I love Ronald Reagan, and why I always will. ‘Policies’ be damned.

[Return Home]