ASK AROUND: who were the most popular post-war presidents, and Democrats will answer: Kennedy, Republicans say: Reagan.
In fact, there is actually someone by the name of Reagan Kennedy. She’s a girl from Illinois, and though few people remember it today, thirteen years ago when she was 6, she hit a hole-in-one. She walked down the fairway, retrieved the ball from the cup, and went to the next tee box without making fist pumps. Her dad had taught her that on the golf course there’s no noise. She was all over the news back then.
She still lives in Bloomington, a 2-hour drive from Dixon, the town with the Ronald Reagan childhood home. No one there knew him as Ronald or Ronnie. He listened to his nickname.
Dutch.
He was born in 1911, at a time when America was in serious Holland mode. Manhattan’s Metropolitan just had an exhibition of 146 Dutch masters. A few years earlier Chicago had hosted no less than 332 Dutch canvases. The city had copied Franeker’s town hall and called it the Cocoa House, in honor of Van Houten’s chocolate that was flooding the country. In the meantime, someone started an ice cream factory under the name Dutch Girl. And the town hall moved to Boston where it’s now called The Dutch House, on 20 Netherlands Road. In 1917 John Kennedy was born around the corner from there.
And then there was this group of lead merchants who opened a new paint factory with the logo of a kid. They called it Dutch Boy.
RONALD Reagan’s father wasn’t home very often, he sold shoes door to door – if he wasn’t drinking in a bar. So when the baby screamed, Dad would quickly lose his temper. He started calling him Dutch, because he made so much noise “for such a little bit of a fat Dutchman.” Ronnie resembled the paint boy, his hair “cut in a Dutch-boy bob.”
His whole life, friends and family would call Ronald Reagan Dutch. Every time he returned to Illinois or to Iowa where he worked for a while as a radio sportscaster, he was addressed as Dutch. He was a product of his time – when America had a kind of love affair with the Dutch.
The reason why recently it became all news again was that a few years back that house appeared to be in disrepair. The foundation that ran it could no longer pay its debts, and repairs were not being made. In Dixon, they sounded the alarm, and sure enough, a new group of Reagan fans came forward. Restoration has since begun.
Money fell in place like a hole-in-one.
Reagan Kennedy is still hitting ‘em right. She is 19 now and plays professional golf at Indiana State University.
* Reagan Kennedy
