Column Chronicles
 
The Ronald Reagan I knew
 
 
Frank Cotolo
October 17, 2013
 
I sincerely liked Ronald Reagan before he was President, in those few years after he lost the nomination to Gerald Ford. Ron's son Ron (I called him Junior) and I were pals since we met at an audition for the Joffrey Ballet. Ron passed the audition and was kind to me, as well as to the dancers I injured during my failed audition.
 
I managed to get a job with the ballet cleaning sweat and chalk dust from the company's leotards. This allowed me to tour with the company, seeing all performances by Junior, except the one that included Ultimate Fighting, a gimmick to attract another kind of patron.
 
The summer Junior invited me to Rancho de Cielo, his father's 688-acre spread in the Santa Ynez Mountains, is when I got to know the soon-to-be-President. He loved to talk about his Hollywood career while we built fences from old telephone poles. He built fences everywhere on the grounds until eventually no one could make a phone call.
 
"I always liked Errol Flynn," he said to me as he slammed a nail into a fence post. "I don't believe that story about him ripping testicles from a goat with his teeth, even though he drank more whiskey than a two-tailed possum in a barn fire."
 
"That Bonzo monkey in that movie I made," he said another time while holding a rope that dragged nine logs behind him for a mile or so, "he was filthy. Used to lick himself. Disgusting cercopothecoid."
 
"I think Bonzo was a playrrhine, not a cercopothecoid," I said.
 
"Primates are primates and they're all filthy, which is why I don't think man evolved from them," he said confidently. "No man stinks as bad as a primate. Right Ron?"
 
Junior didn't know what to think of the comment, one of many that started when he began performing ballet.
 
Those fence-building days high above Santa Barbara were great, though. Mr. Reagan was a regular guy and treated us all like regular guys. One day he confided in Junior and me.
 
"Men," he said, "one day I'd like to build a bridge, not a fence, and that bridge would dart out over the cliff of the Santa Ynez Mountains. By the way, do either of you know if Ynez was related to Desi Arnez?"
 
We shrugged.
 
"So this bridge, made of hard wood and tough nails, could go right up into space, to the moon, and those Commies would be so jealous, never having thought of building a bridge to the moon."
 
We agreed. What a man.
 
Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.

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