Reagan's Birthday

My grandfather scoffed at the actor who gave a wonderful speech back in the 60s at the convention that nominated Goldwater as the GOP candidate to run against LBJ.  An actor who is trained to be someone else, to deliver the writer's words, to portray thoughts to an audience.

The actor stayed around.  Running himself for the highest office.  Running and then failing.  Grandpa watched and wondered why this actor kept focusing on this job.

I have very strong memories of this country's Carter Days.  We purchased our current home in 1985 when interest rates were still at highs hit under Jimmy.  We were able to 'buy down' to 12.75%.  Buying down meant we paid money up front for a lower rate. 

You might ask how we could afford to buy a more expensive house and pay down a rate.  We have been savers from the beginning.  We would never put down on a house the very highest we could if that shorted our emergency savings fund, our cushion against the unknown future. 

Please understand that our savings were making upwards of 13% due to the inflation felt under Carter.  That's right.  The credit union (almost always higher rates than banks on savings) paid us nothing for our first $1,000 in the account but paid 13% on the rest of our nest egg. 

Back to Reagan and Grandpa.  I think Carter wore him down and so did Reagan's persistence.  I think that was true for many of Americans in the fly over portion of these United States.  As I recall Ronald won by a large margin.  His presidency was quite remarkable. 

Happy Birthday Mr. President.  One of the greatest would have been 103 today.  I celebrate him right along with Washington, Harrison, and Lincoln born in the month of February.

'til later