
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 27, 1993                   TAG: 9306270050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TIRESOME TASK DIDN'T SHAKE UP THE FIRST LADY

Some people are describing Pat Nixon, who died Tuesday at age 81, as fragile, even brittle. Perhaps, but she had a citadel of inner strength.

Her husband called her "the greatest campaigner in the world." Watching her at the close of the 1972 Republican Convention, I was inclined to agree.

The Nixons came down from the podium to greet all comers at the base of the mock Roman forum. A line ascended six steps to shake hands with the couple under the glare of TV lights.

Dressed in silk of flaming pink, a high ruff at the neck with loose sleeves gathered into long cuffs over her thin wrists, Pat Nixon betrayed no feeling that the last demand was anything but a pure delight.

A bluff, rotund person shook her hand, and, so doing, her entire arm as if it were a dangling doll's. A grinning jack-o-lantern held her hand high, dosey-do.

A third clung to it, and, departing, was so long releasing it that he was only a second short of pulling her back down the steps with him.

Each of three chunky men in aloha shirts shook her hand in a double clasp until her body trembled. Another, asking for an autograph, held the program belt-high so that stately Pat Nixon, stooping to write, seemed about to topple.

A woman delegate embarked on a story, a recipe on how to stew prunes, perhaps. No impatience showed in the face with the high cheek bones, the pursed, rosebud lips, and the slant hazel eyes. Hands clasped before her, Pat Nixon bent to catch and treasure each tedious word.

As young girls came by, the first lady, murmuring, touched a necklace or leaned forward to bush back a curl.

On a three-story screen behind the podium, an image of the president in profile - lips pursed, black brows knit, a deep shadow along the ski-slope assertive nose, the eyes deeply reflective - regarded the smiling, laughing, handshaking man at the foot of the forum.

Now the president was saying they had a light schedule next day - only five speeches in four cities. The crowd groaned, and he said they would stay 10 more minutes.

The younger ones, last in line, began taking liberties, especially 13-year-old girls, shaking in baby fat, pushing forward to kiss the first lady or hug her, placing their heads a moment on her shoulder.

Well, three days of cheering had earned them that moment, she may have figured.

Then came a stringbean teen-age boy all a-jangle with buttons on his shirt. Shaking her hand, he suddenly, like a kid butting its nanny, lurched forward and kissed her on the cheek. She, laughing, raised her hand to the spot.

He bounded down the steps, and bolted headlong through the hall, looking for his peers to tell about the favor, running as hard as he could out into the tear-gassed night and away from the 1972 Republican National Convention.

I wonder, 21 years later, does he remember?

by CNB