Volume 20, Number 2 · February 22, 1973
Old Times
By Francine du Plessix Gray
When Richard Nixon walked onto the inaugural stand—it was the first time I had seen him in the flesh and I was only twenty yards away from him, in the second row of the press section—I began to weep. I don't know precisely why. Anger for the lives he had wasted? Fear of the enormity of his power? During my brief outburst a women's page reporter near me was talking into her tape recorder: 'Pat in green coat with imperial Russian sable collar, Julie in apricot melton wool with sable collar, Mamie Eisenhower in crimson with matching hat, black gloves, no fur.' Below the inaugural stand the US Marine Band's mammoth silver-plated tubas brilliantly reflected the white, red, and gold costumes of the players. Members of the Marine Chorus stood further down, their bodies pressed angularly against each other's like slices of packaged bologna, their young faces turned toward the audience with smiles of cherubic innocence, as in a high-school class picture. Above, in the Corinthian-columned portico erected for the inaugural, stood the President and, at his right, Pat, Mamie, Julie.
Feature, 3950 words
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