Today was a scorcher in Washington, D.C. and the evening wasn’t much cooler

as we stood and waited to pay our last respects to President

Reagan. According to the <A HREF=”http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/177213_reagan10.html”>Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “By early evening, more than 100 people on the

National Mall had been treated for heat-related illnesses, fire officials

said. U.S. Capitol Police trucked in about 150,000 of bottles of water.”

But how would all that water reach the people standing in those long

lines? Senator Rick Santorum enlisted the young people working for the

Senate Republican Conference he chairs to spend the night walking cases of

water through the many lines so that no one would go thirsty. One young

staffer, who insisted she not be identified, said that Democratic staff

were helping the GOP’s water brigade.

The Senate Republican Conference also passed out 5,000 copies of the text

of a Senate Resolution Honoring President Reagan to give all of us waiting

a reminder of some of the reasons for Reagan’s greatness (“as a lifeguard .

. . saved the lives of 77 swimmers”).

The people mourning President Reagan tonight came from all walks of

life. I talked with Dean Workman, a Dallas, Texas, resident who was just

10 when Reagan became president. Workman vowed to attend Reagan’s funeral

and flew to Washington, D.C. this week to do precisely that.

As I left the Capitol area at 3:00 a.m. there were still thousands of

people waiting in line, including two young parents and their tiny baby,

all of us united to pay our respects to America’s greatest president.