{"id":579,"date":"2026-02-08T16:30:55","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T16:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/?p=579"},"modified":"2026-02-08T16:33:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T16:33:26","slug":"what-my-mother-and-father-taught-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/politics\/what-my-mother-and-father-taught-me\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT MY MOTHER AND FATHER TAUGHT ME"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ theme_builder_area=”post_content” _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ text_font_size=”18px”]

On a rainy September evening in 1985, Ronald Reagan was leaving a state dinner when he spotted an elderly janitor struggling to move a heavy trash bin.
Without hesitation, the President of the United States, dressed in his tuxedo, approached, grabbed the other side of the bin, and helped push it all the way to the loading dock, while Secret Service agents nearly had a heart attack seeing their boss handling garbage in a $3,000 suit.
The janitor, James Parker, later recounted that what surprised him wasn\u2019t just the help he received, but the fact that Reagan spent fifteen minutes asking him about his grandchildren, his hometown in Georgia, his retirement dreams, treating their conversation as if it were the most important meeting on his schedule\u2014because, for Reagan, it truly was.
Born on February 6, 1911, in a modest apartment where his family struggled to pay the rent, he never forgot what his mother, Nelle, had whispered to him during the darkest days of the Great Depression: \u201cRonnie, there are no little people, only little thoughts about people,\u201d and he carried that truth into every room he entered. His former aide, Michael Deaver, described how Reagan would arrive early to events specifically to meet the service staff, the kitchen crew, and the venue\u2019s workers; how he sent handwritten thank-you notes to the White House cleaning teams; how he once delayed a critical National Security Council meeting because he\u2019d promised a new gardener he\u2019d look at his daughter\u2019s wedding photos, and \u201ca promise is a promise, even for me.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

What touches me deeply about that rainy evening isn\u2019t the tuxedo he likely ruined or the security nightmare he created, but his profound conviction that every job has dignity, that every person deserves respect, and that if you\u2019re too important to help someone move a trash bin, you\u2019re not important at all\u2014you\u2019re just lost.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation (\u201cReagan\u2019s Personal Kindnesses\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Deaver\u2019s memoirs (\u201cA Different Drummer\u201d)<\/span><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a rainy September evening in 1985, Ronald Reagan was leaving a state dinner when he spotted an elderly janitor struggling to move a heavy trash bin. Without hesitation, the President of the United States, dressed in his tuxedo, approached, grabbed the other side of the bin, and helped push it all the way to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-introspective-dan","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions\/585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannytri.org\/myblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}