25 Years Since We Almost Lost the Gipper

On this day in 1981 I was working in a bank branch in Tustin, CA when one of our corporate execs came in and said that President Reagan had been shot. She was very upset, and as a guy who had been thrilled with Reagan's election, I feared that the promise of the Reagan administration had been suddenly destroyed almost as quickly as it had started.

We didn't have a radio or TV in the branch, so on my breaks and at lunch I sat in my car listening to the latest reports. I rushed home at the end of the day to follow the story on TV. It's probably fortunate that we didn't realize how desperate the situation really was until after the danger had passed.

While in Washington last July I saw the hotel where the shooting occurred, though the area where Hinckley fired has been completely changed. There is now a special secure access port for the president that prevents anyone from observing him as he enters and exits the hotel.

None of us who supported Reagan will forget the events of that day, and given the successes that followed Reagan's recovery, the nation can be thankful the assassin failed.