Although the images of presidents appear everywhere, few people actually get to see one in person. It's an experience most people never forget, judging by the comments Times readers have been sending to an online feature about close encounters with presidents.
One woman recounted how her labrador retriever got away from her and jumped on Gerald Ford. A former dancer and singer at the Missouri State Fair remembered getting a compliment from Harry S. Truman after she sang "Stormy Weather." One man described seeing Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush at a luncheon in honor of George C. Marshall. "It was stunning," he wrote.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, January 22, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 26 words Type of Material: Correction
Readers remember: A collection of reminiscences about presidents in Sunday's special inauguration section said Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in 1931. He was elected in 1932.
To tell your story or to read about more encounters, visit latimes.com/inauguration. Excerpts of some reader submissions:
In the early 1980s, I founded Camp Good Times, to help children with cancer like my son, David. After our program was profiled in Reader's Digest, a woman called. . . . She said President Reagan was on the line.
Certain my brother, Michael, was tricking me, I played along. The "President" said he read about us and wondered how my son was doing. After realizing it was, indeed, the leader of the free world, I invited the President to see the camp. He and Mrs. Reagan visited us for four years and, on each occasion, were friendly and warm.
Once the President moved into his Century City office, our family went to see him. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's but was still working. I asked the President if he remembered me; he said he thought so. Then David, who, suffered brain damage from cranial radiation, embraced the President. The two of them held each other in one of the greatest hugs I've ever seen. . . .
-- Pepper Edmiston
Pacific Palisades
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The crowd was thick lining the Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City. . . . Standing in an open limousine and holding on to a safety bar, his auburn hair catching red glints of midday sun, President John F. Kennedy passed quickly by and was gone.
The Mexican family I had lived with for eleven months offered to take me the next day to hear him speak. . . . We stood on the soccer field amid a large crowd. . . . President Kennedy stood and spoke briefly, saying that on that American holiday, July 4, 1962, Americans in a foreign land should not have to listen to long speeches, and he said he would like to join us on the field. . . .
