Why I now mourn the White House

I first went into the White House when my father, Ronald Reagan, was inaugurated in January 1981.

- By PATTI DAVIS

It was afternoon and I had been assigned an inaugural ball to attend later. A ball gown was waiting for me; so was a hairdresser who insisted that my hair had to be pinned up. I was the rebellious first daughter who didn’t want to be first daughter. I wanted my life back ~ a life that didn’t have armed agents following me and reporters writing about me, a life with no ball gowns at all.

Swept up in my own personal drama, I was blind to the much greater drama of my surroundings, the history brushing past me in the White House’s long hallways. When my family got a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Rex, he stood near the Lincoln Bedroom barking his little head off at no one, in what my father insisted was an encounter with Lincoln’s ghost. I waited in vain for my own encounter with the ghost, so I could complain to him about all the intrusions into my life.