Norvell Emerson: “Richard Nixon has departed this life. For a person of my age and vintage, but perhaps not uniquely so, the loss of him…”

“Richard Nixon has departed this life. For a person of my age and vintage, but perhaps not uniquely so, the loss of him makes so very poignant the age through which we have lived. I first personally saw Richard Nixon in that most quintessential political experience noted in this century, the Whistle Stop Campaign. As a boy, 14 years of age, I was excused from school one bright October morning to go with my grandfather to Festus, MO, where the then-Vice Presidential candidate exhorted the onlookers in the interests of peace and prosperity as a part of the campaign of 1952. Richard Nixon was then, of course, Senator Nixon--the Vice Presidential nominee on the ticket with Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower. I last saw and had a word with former President Nixon at a luncheon in January hosted by Senator Bob Dole in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of President Nixon's first inauguration as President of the United States. That intervening period in which Richard Nixon has been such a preeminent player constitutes a most remarkable chapter in American history, and I feel very blessed to have been alive and to witness and to participate in this era.”