Nixon/Frost Tapes

I cried the day that Nixon resigned from his office as President. I cried again today when I watched the Nixon/Frost tapes. I cried because I had always known that Nixon had been a friend to me but I had never known until today as to how much of a friend to me he had been.

The interview is truly awesome. I relived much of my time spent as a teacher in the Azusa School district in Southern California. I feel that I must return there someday. Everyone will now have forgotten it all, won't they?

I have to admit that I had discussed my learning of the life of George Washington then, and I am certain that Richard Nixon was as well aware of that as other people, including faculty and friends, that I had been.

After listening to Richard Nixon flatter me in his some of statements as I know very well that many know now, including David, that he is echoing me many times...I am duly flattered and pleased. I referred to a gentleman who I met at the mall some time ago who always made me think of Nixon. He had said something to me that Nixon had said for which Nixon was so famous that the students at Center even looked at me when the textbook said clearly these famous words: "Let's look back". Nixon and the gentleman of the mall experience both said "Don't look back." That is a line from Dante's Inferno as one goes through the cells of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Don't look back.

And so what does Dante know anyway?

But anyway, we always do look back, but even in the bible a woman turned to salt when she looked back...Probably Dante took his words of advice from that old story about Lot's wife.

Most of the time the meaning of the phrase don't look back is don't get cold feet. Don't hesitate...Don't rethink it...

But Nixon and Frost together are looking back at Watergate, and as I had always seen the parallels between my life and that of Nixon, I recognized many things that he said that made sense to me and caused me to recollect what had been happening to me when all this was happening in the White House.

I was devastated when he resigned, but all this was probably pretty much prescripted. So many things happened that year...Patty Hearst, GEtty's grandson, Chile, Spiro Agnew's resignation, Jerry Ford being sworn in as vice-president, my hairdresser Patty's getting married, Secretariat becoming a triple crown winner,
my return to Michigan and back to California, license plates changing, Deep Throat, Welcome Back Kotter being filmed, Towering Inferno being filmed, The Sex Symbol with Connie Stevens being filmed, many, many things happening...

I went to the Tonight Show to see Johnny Carson, Connie Stevens, Wayne Newton, and a standup comedian with my friends from Azusa. That was on my birthday and a gift to me from NBC as I had not designated a date. Connie was plugging her new show called The Sex Symbol, a story based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Wayne Newton sang a sone from the movie The King and I called Hello Young Lovers, wherever you are...A comedian came on stage with a bag on his head which he never took off. And Kathy Rigby was the final star promoting her role in the play Peter Pan. ( Nixon is pretty much Captain Hook in the version that I saw starring Sandy Duncan.)

Oh, I remember it well. My friend Kathleen and I had gone to see the movie Jesus Christ Superstar together after we had tried to see a guru at some Hollywood site. He was a noshow. We realized in the movie that I looked like Jesus and Kathleen looked like Judas, in terms of voices...she had told me to lower my voice as I was speaking so high up in the air...we both enjoyed the movie. Just another parallelism. She had the deep bass voice, and mine is squeaky high at times...only when excited or in stress.

I finally saw Ted Neely here in person this past spring at ASU in Gammage Theatre in the play Jesus Christ Superstar. I loved that play. It is better this many years later.

Why all this now? I needed this. I will have to visit the Nixon library when I go to California. He was from Whittier at one time, and one of my students went to Whittier College. It would be important for me and probably some of my students to learn the truth about this.

One phrase I used at Gladstone a lot, and I noticed that he mentioned William Gladstone in the interview, so I know he knows...is the phrase, Did I let you down?

When he said that, I know that he nailed it. It would be primarily between me and Don Stoner that way...I let you down...

Yes, through Jimmy Carter, as I met with him personally, I learned that the White House knows everything I do and where I go and what I say. I suspected as much with the Nixon administration...he just proved it to me...

Whether thought transmission or eavesdropping, anybody's guess? Not very likely that anyone but me can verify this now..all I gotta say is that Nixon did himself right and proud in the end...I can vouch for that...

He followed the right course...no need for a crippled president...I could not agree more...but I will also add that the crippled children of the world do get attention from places where it counts...so from that place I can say It is Perfectly Clear to me....Adieu!