I find there is a curious side to this national bereavement, which is another three, almost four day weekend, and a carnival atmosphere of celebration downtown.

Because it is a celebration, in a way. Dutch Reagan is freed from the awful clouds of his disease, and the legacy of his passing, for good or ill, is waved as a banner in which we all played our little parts.

He is going to the National Cathedral for the last orations of the famous. The current president will give a eulogy, and the notables will fan themselves in the stiff wooden folding seats.

The Cathedral is a strange place. It has no fixed pews and no official connection to the Government. In fact, its separation has been at times prickly and proud. But still, the last great cathedral to be constructed without structural steel and the tools of the modern world dominates the highlands above the imperial city, and it stands as a cool oasis above the sweltering government.

It is cool and dim within the great Nave, completed in 1976 and dedicated befroe Queen Elizibeth and President Ford. You can find President Wilson there, off to one side of the apse, and there is a rock from the moon embedded in one of the great widows of stained glass.

Past and future are gathered together there. The idea of a prominent church is as old as L’Enfant’s plan for the capital. The foundation stone was laid in 1907 and President Theodore Roosevelt and the Bishop of London spoke to a crowd of ten thousand. The rock on which the cathedral is based came from a field near Bethlehem and was set into a larger piece of solid American granite.

Construction went on for 83 years. The second tower was not completed until I lived in this town, in 1990, and it had been under privately-funded construction for nearly a century. Generations of stone carvers were employed there, and a touch of whimsy is present throughout the solemn work. The gargoyles are a treat. These architectural details serve to drain rainwater from the roofs, casting it off so it does not soak and overthrow the stone.

In the old country, they are carved in the likeness of goblins and imps.

Here, the gargoyles are carved as fierce Bureaucrats and pompous foremen and figures of the secular city below.

It is a nice place. You would like it. Not a government nickel in any bit of the stone. Church and State in glorious separation, twined like lovers and still parts that do not touch. Quite a contortion in stone.

This is an unnerving Friday. I took the afternoon off yesterday since I was so disoriented from my middle-of-the-night adventure to the Mall on Thursday morning- I managed to knock out a pretty good memo summarizing a wine-drenched business lunch Wednesday, which in turn had been prompted by the imminent arrival of the former President. But that was as much as got accomplished.

I can’t help but think of the Reaper this week, and the odd confluence of the harvest. Ray Charles Robinson is having his eulogies this morning. He was only 73, two decades short of Dutch.

Ray lived a harder life, and of course he grew up poor. The light was taken from him when he was seven, and with the women in his life he had the great enduring love of heroin, twenty years of an affair more profound than most. Not a  love supreme, perhaps, but a darkness deep and rich.

But at the end, and for a good long run, he had clarity and he made music in a way that crossed at least three major genres, if not four. He was an American icon just as vital as Dutch was.

So I am a little sad that he is so overshadowed by the events of state. There is no announcement of Charlie’s funeral arrangments, but it is sure not to be at the Cathedral.

They are extending the public viewing for Dutch, all the way to 9:00 am, to accommodate those who are in line now. It is at least five hours from the beginning of the queue on 4th street, so the last of the common people to see Dutch under the Capitol would have arrived just before 4:00 am.

It would be nice if there was some Ray Charles music playing to pass the time, but I think the authorities would not approve. Dutch’s image is completely controlled, a packaged product.

But if you took the two of these icons together, white and black, rich and poor, you might actually have a look at the wonder of this nation, of its vitality and of its possibilities.

But we will keep these files segregated in show business and matters of state, though of course they were both showmen, and Dutch will be buried overlooking the Simi Valley.

That this where the jurors came from, you will recall, from the first trial of the LA PD officers who beat Rodney King.

I did not receive an invitation to the ceremony at the Cathedral. The Reagan family has a thousand invites to dispense, and all of Congress is on the list as well.

I seem to have fallen off all the lists here, except the 4:00 am place in line to view his casket.

So, I am forced to make my own tribute. As a token of respect, I am staying home today from work. I hope to play a round of golf in tribute to the President. If the rains come and sweep that activity away, I fully intend to move my personal ceremony inside.

We may look for an Indian restaurant with a decent lunch buffet, and maybe some blues after, since Charlie should have his moment today, too.

Copyright 2004 Vic Socotra