Dutch and Dwight and Glenn

Several weeks ago, Ruth and I attended a lecture by Edmund Morris and his wife, Sylvia Jukes Morris. Edmund Morris has written The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, and Sylvia Jukes Morris has written Rage of Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce and Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First lady. The Morris’s were in our city to give several lectures and hold some seminars for our Theodore Roosevelt High School students. Local civic and service groups wanting to enlighten the students about the school’s namesake funded these programs. At a public presentation one evening, we were told; about the intricacies of writing biographies; many interesting stories about the about their four subjects; and, the blessings and difficulties of being the biographers of both live and dead subjects. The program was fascinating.

At the close of the program, they offered to answer questions from the audience. One man inquired about Reagan’s memory during his White House years…he wondered if Morris had noticed the President’s declining mental facilities in light of what we now know was his soon to be diagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease. Mr. Morris said that he had seen no evidence of Alzheimer’s in his nearly daily contact with the president, but went on to relate a very interesting story that occurred a year or two after Mr. Reagan’s presidency was completed. Maggie Thatcher had been invited to the Presidential Library in California to receive an award from Mr. Reagan. The former president read the citation, handed Mrs. Thatcher the award and all present rose to give her a standing ovation. Mr. Reagan returned to the podium and proceeded to re-read the entire award citation, walked over to her and congratulated her again, and the audience, after looking at one another for a brief moment, gave her another standing ovation. Mr. Morris said that he never had another meeting or spoke with Mr. Reagan again after that event.

I related this story to Sandy Graham, our dear neighbor, and she asked if I had ever seen anything like that during my psychological career. I said that I had, and related the following story.

I was asked to Chair the All-Ohio Guidance Conference for School Counselors in 1972. This was a three day conference and was attended by several thousand counselors, seventeen hundred of whom signed up to attend the annual awards banquet at the Ohio State Fair Grounds in Columbus, OH. The top-counseling award had been named in honor of Dr. Dwight Arnold several years before, but he had never been present to actually give the award because after his retirement from Kent State University, he had embarked on a Fullbright Fellowship in India. I was invited to join the Kent State University faculty when Dwight retired and I felt a special closeness to him and knew all about his many accomplishments. I asked him if he would be willing to present the award named in his honor. He said he would be honored, but not knowing the awardee, asked if I would write the citation. I said I would be happy to do so. The night of the banquet arrived and everyone was in his or her place at the head table. Dr. Arnold was to present the award immediately before the main speaker, Dr. Glenn Olds, President of Kent State University. Dr. Olds had just become president of Kent State University from a position in the United Nations and was a nationally known speaker. This was going to be the perfect banquet to end the perfect conference. It was a September evening and the large banquet hall was not air conditioned, but I had scheduled a compact program and knew this shouldn’t present a problem.

Well, even good plans can come apart! Dwight rose to present the award. He received a standing ovation, because although everyone present had heard of him, few actually knew him, but were aware of his tremendous contributions to the profession. Dwight, whose doctoral dissertation in 1919 was on disarmament, started by saying he was honored to be asked to present the award, and then proceeded to give a twenty minute presentation on the need for the United States to disarm. He kept saying that he had only few points to make, but he managed to make them…over and over. Finally, he started to present the award. He had asked that I prepare two copies of the citation, one to give the awardee and one for his personal files. Well, Dwight read both the original and carbon of the page long citation! As at the Reagan banquet, everyone looked at one another and then gave both the awardee and Dwight a standing ovation!

Sandy listened to me tell the story about Dwight and just about the time I got to the part about Dwight reading both the original and the carbon copies … it hit me … I had told her this story before! Oh my, I’m just like Dwight and Dutch. Well, not quite as bad, yet. Sandy insisted that I had not told her this story before, but I think she was just being nice to me. Or maybe, I had told it to one of you.

December 2002

The End