Joe Barton: “I was driving down to Corpus Christi last Saturday afternoon with my wife, Terry, and her daughter Lindsey and her…”

“I was driving down to Corpus Christi last Saturday afternoon with my wife, Terry, and her daughter Lindsey and her cousin Jackie and Terry's family for a brief family vacation when my staffer Andy Black called me on the telephone and said, Have you heard the news that President Reagan died this afternoon? And I said no, I have not heard that, but we immediately switched on the radio; and sure enough, there was a news bulletin from California that President Reagan had passed away. And so as we continued to drive down to Corpus, I began to reminisce about the President. My mind went back to the late 1970s when this country was mired in recession and interest rates were sky high and we had hostages in Iran and there was a spirit of pessimism that America could not be great anymore. And Governor Reagan came out of California and announced for the Presidency and said that there was hope, that not only could we be great again, but we would be great again.”