Here's a Reagan story from my grandmother, Nancy Anderson, from her years as a reporter with an L.A. newspaper (she went on to become an editor at Photoplay Magazine.)

"A long time ago I was at the Reagans' house. Ron, Jr was toddling around and Patti was about five or something, and (Ronald Reagan) and I were talking about economics or something related, and I told him he'd made a very good talk at a meeting of the Palos Verdes Woman's Club. Then I pointed out that California was going to have an open U.S. Senate seat and that I thought he should run for it.

He said he wasn't interested, but I argued that he could easily be elected, because the only thing a candidate had to do to win a race was to be able to handle himself well on camera, something Mr. Reagan had been doing for years. After all, I said to him, look how well that young senator from Massachusetts (JFK) is using television in his campaign.

But he insisted he wasn't interested in holding political office. As it turned out, another actor, George Murphy, ran for the Senate and won. He was the actor who years earlier had introduced Bob to Delores Hope."

She also told me that she was at the Reagans' house on the day of JFK's funeral and watched the television coverage with them. She was no JFK fan, and she says that the Reagans' comments on that day were pretty harsh...of course she agreed with them, but...

Dickens can look pretty cute when he's all cleaned up for a show. Here he is with Jane at their first "A" show. 

It's the end of an era. Lemon Drop -- aka "Dickens" now he officially belongs to another little girl. Jane rode him for three years and he taught her so much. Now she's ready to move up to a younger, "better' pony, but we're glad he will be staying at Fiesta Farm. 

And a final message from the Granju family on this, the 60th anniversary of D-Day. This is Elliot on Edisto Beach. 

With the unveiling of the new WWII memorial and the 60th anniversary of D-Day, my attention has been drawn again to the sacrifices made by American soldiers in WWII. Never before or since has America been involved in a more necessary and heroic enterprise. When I hear my children’s French grandfather describe his childhood in Annemasse under Nazi occupation, I try to explain to the kids what it meant to Europeans when Americans stormed the beaches on D-Day. In fact, my two oldest children are at Normandy today, June 6, with their grandparents. I hope that they return home with a deeply personal understanding of the bravery of the Americans who fought on that day and every day of the war.

But it makes me sad to see the nearly 4,000 soldiers being deployed to Iraq from East Tennessee this week. Their willingness to serve and their bravery are unquestionable. In this way, they are like those who fought in WWII. But their mission is far less clear, and that makes me angry on their behalf. Like most Americans (even those of us of a liberal stripe), I fully supported sending troops in to take out the Taliban in Afghanistan, but I still feel betrayed by the way Americans’ willingness to do what was necessary to root out Al Qaeda was manipulated to get us into a war in Iraq. I struggle with how to demonstrate the proper respect for and support of my neighbors who will soon be on the ground in Iraq even as I believe their sacrifices are being made in pursuit of a Bush foreign policy that will bear bitter fruit in coming decades – the decades during which my sons and daughter will come of age.

I want my children to believe – as I do – that there are things in life worth dying for. But I also want them to know that there are other things that aren’t. And I want them to grow up with American leadership that knows the difference.


Elliot, age 6, with his grandpere, Jean Pierre Granju 

Jane, age 8 

Henry, age 12