Opinion : A birthday tribute to the Gipper

Continuing my series of birthday tributes (last week, Charles Dickens, tomorrow Abe Lincoln), today I offer a memorial to Ronald Reagan on the 102nd anniversary of his birth, with the hope that those of both parties who quoted him so often in the 2012 campaign rememer him as fondly as I do.

A Freedom Man goes home

Old Glory dips lower

Her familiar hues

Silently rippling

Acknowledge the news

A Great One is gone

To his eternal reward

While we left behind

Remember his words

He oft made us laugh

By leading the way

With his wisdom and wit

And the right thing to say

"We don't want to be liked"

But if we want to be protected

Then what we seek to be

Is a nation respected

Those few simple words

From the candidate's lips

Began the slow turning

Of America's ship

Away from the malaise

Left over from 'Nam

And economic numbers

That meant nothing but harm

"Peace through strength"

Reagan said

And with that we embarked

On the way to put Red

On its way to the dark

Their empire he called "evil"

And then he went to the wall

To call for its end

And we watched that wall fall

Meanwhile back at home,

The "misery index"

Meant jobs were too few

And inflation still vexed

The people who tried

To just get along

But this man had a plan

To fix what went wrong

Though his party back then

Was in the minority

The Gipper was able

To get congress to see

That what he was doing

Was what folks demanded

And his opponents just sighed

As on his desk the bills landed

To lower the tax rate

And offer more liberty

From government burdens

And provide for prosperity

"They can't see the light"

He liked to repeat

About dealing with Congress

"Unless they feel the heat"

And slowly we saw that

What he said would work had

And Americans became

Less gloomy, more glad

So when the time came around

For us to vote again

It was another big landslide

For the guy with the grin

His assistants recall

How he was met on the trail

Of that '84 campaign

By an exhilarating yell

Especially at colleges

Where the kids of the day

Would stand up to chant

"USA! USA! USA!"

"America is back"

He said at convention

While communism's going

In the other direction

Not too bad for a man

Very much older than all

Who'd ever taken the job

In the office Oval

They'd said "He's too old"

In 1980 and then

In 1984, as before

They tried to say it again

This time he was ready

And victory's bell he sure rung

When he said "I won't take advantage

Of an opponent so young"

So he got four more years

And when it was time to leave

He offered more words

About what we can achieve

He told of a seeker

Of great Liberty's land

Who greeted an sailor and said

"Hello, freedom man"

That, Reagan reminded,

Was what we became

To the folks of the world

Who sought a life of the same

It wasn't all perfect

Liberty's job's never complete

But all in all, most agree

It was an incredible feat

He turned one nation around

In just a handful of days

And inspired a whole world

To choose freedom's ways

So, Ronnie, so Dutch

"The Gipper" in that scene

We hope up in Heaven

There will be jelly beans

Your work is all done

You did your very best

And now is the time

For you to enter your rest

I'm not sure how it works

Inside heaven's gates

About when you arrive

Or what will take place

But it won't surprise me at all

If someone extends his hand

And offers this welcome:

"Hello, Freedom man."