Last night, I actually bought the Morris book (about 20 bucks at a discount chain), and have read the first hundred pages. That covers his childhood through college. I will review piecemeal, as I go along----
Although the conceit of creating an "alter- Morris" and other fictional characters is disconcerting and not altogether kosher, it does have a literary purpose that begins to show up about half-way through the section I have read, and may be defensible. It allows a summary view of Reagan as he may have been glimpsed by contemporaries who did not know him terribly well. As things have gone on, I think it may prove to be a legitimate, if unorthodox, tack to have taken.
The picture of Reagan that emerges is one of a bright lad who is terribly earnest. He learns to read on his own before starting school, he does so well in the early years of grammar school that he skips a grade, and he is uses the library a lot. He is successful in high- school, a leader in school activities, and wins a place of honor on the football team, despite his poor eyesight, through grit. He pairs off with the smartest girl in school, and they head off to Eureka College together, where he majors in sociology and economics. Again, he is very active around campus, a frat man, on the newspaper, but, to his chagrin, a benchwarmer for the football team.
Although he has a partial scholarship, he earns money for school through his lifeguarding during the summer, and through campus jobs. Despite his poor eyesight, he saves nearly 80 people as a lifeguard. He is devoted to his mother, and active in church activities with her after he is baptized as a teen. He often recites things at events, and has some experience in dramatics in both high- school and college.
He is not high- brow, and his tastes in reading run to the heroic and uplifting. He is a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs, especially the Mars books, and likes stories about earnest young men who make their mark. He is not terribly reflective, and might be considered a bit of a glad- hander, but he is a great raconteur, and knows how to tell a joke, and has occasion to speak on serious topics in public from time to time.
At Eureka, Reagan is one of the leaders of a student strike over a major campus reorganization, and makes a big speech that elicits an enthusiastic response, and the experience stays with him. His copy for the paper, which is about sports, is amusing if cloying. When Morris looks over a number of school essays and stories, he finds them "almost literature", insofar as Reagan had a flair for evocative writing, but also terribly hackneyed in their sentiments. Morris also thinks that he observes the odd detachment that many comment on as early as Reagan's teens, although he also observes that frequently, Reagan cannot see very well, since he won't wear his glasses all the time, and that some of it is a result of Reagan becoming practiced at dealing with people. An interesting anecdote, by the way, is that Reagan seems not to have any racial prejudice, and when a couple of his black teammates were refused hotel accommodations on the road, he took them to Dixon, which happened to be nearby, and had his parents put them up.
Reagan graduated college with grades well above average. |
