Reagan left a lasting impression even in the ‘50s

Like every other unwashed columnist in the country, I spent the weekend trying to come up with a new angle on Ronald Reagan, who died Saturday after a 10-year struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Then, to my dismay, I learned I had been scooped on C-SPAN, the cable TV public affairs and politics channel.

By my own dear mom-in-law – Dian Boling.

Annoyed by all the snarky comments callers were making about our 40th president, Dian, a longtime south Spokane resident, dialed the C-SPAN hotline and gave away the Boling Family Reagan Story to a national audience.

“I’m not the type who calls C-SPAN,” she told me Sunday afternoon. “But I was listening to so many people just being mean. They can’t even let the poor guy rest.”

Dian decided to tell her story to prove what a genuine down-to-Earth human being our late-president was.

The Boling Family Reagan Story is about the day my late father-in-law, Clare, had an up-close and personal encounter with RR along a stretch of Columbia Basin highway.

That’s way better than my lone brush with Reagan, which happened when the president flew into Boise to give a speech. The newspaper sent me to report on it.

Alas, I never got closer than maybe 25 or 30 rows from the prez.

It was cool seeing the Great Communicator up there yakking away although I can’t recall a single thing he said.

My most cherished memory of that day is of Sam Donaldson, ABC Television’s intrepid White House correspondent. He trudged into the auditorium with the rest of the national press lemmings, wearing a rumpled trench coat and a hairpiece that could have passed for a dead ferret.

When my father-in-law met Reagan, the man was still years away from the California governorship, let alone the Oval Office. He was an actor, considered by some as the Errol Flynn of B-movies.

Dian says their meeting took place in the late 1950s, which sounds right. The Spokesman-Review archives show that Reagan did visit Spokane in early October 1959 to speak at the Davenport Hotel on behalf of the Spokane Business and Professional Women’s Club.

Clare, who would become a well-known Spokane attorney, was a trooper for the Washington State Patrol back then. His job was to prowl the asphalt around the lonely Channeled Scablands of Moses Lake and Othello.

“Clare was getting bored when he saw this fancy big car that was going a bit too fast,” says Dian. “He stopped it for something to do. Low and behold, it’s Ronald Reagan in the car.”

It’s a shame my father-in-law isn’t around to tell the tale himself. He was a kind, fun-loving guy who loved to share his stories from his years on the patrol.

Dian, however, still remembers the day Clare came home and excitedly told her: “You’ll never guess who I stopped today.”

The actor, remembers Dian, was a passenger in the car. Clare asked the driver for a license. The man told him it was in the trunk, somewhere in his luggage.

Clare said he needed to see it. The driver began unloading luggage from the trunk of the car.

Dian believes Clare probably did this to give him more time to chat with Reagan. Clare described the future president as a great guy – anything but a Hollywood big shot. Eventually, the driver located the license and was allowed to leave.

It would be great to know where Reagan was heading. Or if Clare cited the driver or just let him off with a warning.

Unfortunately, a lot of details were lost in 1977, when Clare died in a plane crash.

The biggest surprise, recalls Dian, came shortly after that highway stop. She says Reagan wrote a handwritten letter to the patrol, complimenting Clare on his courteous conduct and professionalism.

After Reagan became president, Dian sent him a letter recounting the incident. Reagan sent back a note and an autographed color photograph, which Dian has tucked away for safekeeping.

That highway meeting with the future president made a lifetime Reagan fan out of Dian. “Clare was very impressed with him,” she says. “I’ve heard hours and hours about him (watching C-SPAN and other news channels) and I haven’t heard one bad thing about his treatment of other people.

“He was a nice man.”