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- <text>
- <title>
- (1980) Where The Skies Are Not Cloudy...
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1980 Highlights
- </history>
- <link 00018>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- January 5, 1981
- MAN OF THE YEAR
- Where the Skies Are Not Cloudy...</hdr>
- <body>
- <p>The Reagans' ranch is their retreat
- </p>
- <p> He calls it Rancho del Cielo--his ranch in the sky--and
- it is a continent and an era away from the life he will be
- leading in Washington, D.C. The 688 acres of rugged land nestle
- in the Santa Ynez Mountains, 2,200 ft. above the Pacific Ocean,
- about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The Reagans raise a few
- cattle on the isolated spread they bought six years ago, but
- they use it mainly, and eagerly, as a retreat. And so jealously
- do they guard their privacy that few outsiders have seen their
- hideaway. As he looked forward to his Inaugural, the President-
- elect allowed TIME Washington Bureau Chief Robert Ajemian to
- spend two days with him at the ranch and to observe the
- unpretentious and invigorating life that he leads there.
- </p>
- <p> Ronald Reagan lifted the double-edged ax above his head and
- slammed it into the tree branch lying on the ground. He swung
- again, his right hand sliding the length of the long wooden
- handle, and kept swinging for two full minutes. His face
- glistened with sweat. He wore amber sunglasses: earlier he had
- removed his contact lenses because the flying chips sometimes
- lodged behind them. In his faded denim shirt, leather gloves,
- scuffed boots and cowboy hat, he looked fit and even young. His
- breathing now became a little heavy, and he put down the ax.
- </p>
- <p> He was completely at home. "This is where I restore myself,"
- he tells the few friends he invites here. The ranch is
- accessible only by climbing seven miles on a switchback road,
- through gullies and blind turns that drop off sharply toward the
- water, a drive that still makes Nancy Reagan nervous. Strong
- winds and fog often roll in suddenly from the sea; at other
- times the air on the mountaintop is crystal clear and dead
- quiet, so still that a voice can be heard at great distances.
- </p>
- <p> Now Reagan began picking up the splits of wood, loading them
- into a cart. His five-room 100-year-old adobe house depends on
- two fireplaces for heat. He takes pride in keeping his supply
- of firewood stacked high. "I enjoy the fireplaces here more,"
- he says, "because I know we need the heat."
- </p>
- <p> His favorite riding horse, Little Man, a 17-year-old
- thoroughbred he raised from a colt, is always here waiting.
- Only Reagan rides him. Reagan is sentimental about all his
- animals. Three months ago, one of his dogs, a German shepherd
- named Fuzzy, had to be put to sleep because of arthritis in his
- hips, and Reagan had a small ceremony. He fed the dog some final
- treats, said his goodbyes, and buried him on a nearby hillside
- next to Rhino, which belonged to his son Ron. Reagan scratched
- the dog's name on a marker and covered the grave with rocks so
- coyotes will not dig up the body.
- </p>
- <p> He comes to his mountain to labor, and this afternoon he was
- far out in the woods clearing one of his riding trails. With an
- 8-ft. pruning pole he reached high into the drooping branches,
- poling, pulling, sawing back and forth. For years he has
- stretched his muscles with a small, rubber-tired wheel that has
- a wooden bar through its center. Crouched on his knees, Reagan
- rolls the wheel far out in front of him, back and forth, 30 or
- 40 times. He even carries it with him on the road.
- </p>
- <p> The trail was finally clear of brush, and Reagan got behind
- the wheel of his 1962 Jeep and towed the cart of boughs toward
- the ranch dump. Two dogs, Millie, a black-haired hound, and
- Victory, a golden retriever, which wears a dog tag marked 1600
- Pennsylvania Avenue, pressed against his neck. A third, a
- female husky named Taca, sleeps during the day. Taca is a night
- hunter, Reagan explained, and she drags home deer carcasses,
- dead possum and skunk. The husky is so smelly she has to be
- washed down now and then with tomato juice.
- </p>
- <p> As the Jeep wobbled along the dirt road, a bobcat as big as
- Victory suddenly came into view, taut and staring, about 50
- yards away, and the men in the Jeep hoped the dogs would not
- notice. Reagan ignored it. He knows the animals well that stalk
- the brown, dark hills of his ranch. Mountain lions, protected
- from hunters by California law, sometimes appear striding
- fearlessly in full view. Last spring a lion cub was discovered
- sleeping in the Reagan barn and was left undisturbed. That night
- the mother came and took the cub away.
- </p>
- <p> Bears have turned up around the barn too, and last summer the
- leather seat of Reagan's tractor was torn up by one. A pair of
- hawks have a nest across the meadow from the house and
- constantly glide the sky searching for game. Deer are
- everywhere and customarily take water at Reagan's man-made pond.
- He has aimed a spotlight at the visitors, and watched them
- standing frozen in the glare. He is not a hunter, although from
- time to time he has used his pistol on ground squirrels because
- here they carry disease. He has killed three rattlesnakes on
- the spread, two with boulders and the third with his foot.
- Believing he had cowboy boots on, Reagan stomped on the rattler
- only to realize, aghast, that he was wearing sneakers.
- </p>
- <p> His friends often needle him about being a frustrated cowboy,
- and they are right. A Texas admirer recently shipped him an
- enormous longhorn steer that weighed over 2,000 lbs. Reagan,
- who has a name for everything, called the steer Duke. The
- animal somehow escaped, and as he drove around this day Reagan
- was keeping an eye out for Duke.
- </p>
- <p> Deep ruts in the washed-out roads caused the Jeep to tilt
- sideways as Reagan eased over them. The man next to him in the
- Jeep was a Government medic assigned to stay at his side. A car
- bumping along behind was filled with Secret Service men. From
- time to time Reagan gazed into the groves of live oaks looking
- for Duke. He pointed to the bushes he admires, the toyon, a
- California holly with bright red berries, and the brownish
- manzanita. He saw some clumps of greasewood and got worked up
- talking about its dry, grasping nature and how it burns fiercely
- when set afire by lightning.
- </p>
- <p> He prefers the natural growth and has little interest in
- raising vegetables. "I like the wildness of this place," he
- said, speaking eagerly of the numerous wildflowers and their
- fragrance after a rainfall. He has done a little planting of
- his own; Eastern lilacs just behind the house, some willows and
- live oaks, now climbing strongly. He once took a seed from a
- pine cone, started in a coffee can and nurtured it into a tree.
- </p>
- <p> From Bald Mountain, the highest point on Reagan's land, you
- can see 40 miles down the California coast and, in the
- spectacular distance, five of the Channel Islands. At the other
- end of the ranch, you look down on the Santa Ynez Valley and gaze
- over heavy, rolling hills that plunge toward the sea.
- </p>
- <p> Reagan knows the history of his ranch, and as he drew closer
- to the house he pointed to a distant hill and told how a hundred
- years ago, a young bandit had been ambushed there. He told of
- a hanging tree and stagecoach holdups. On the wide hillside
- across the valley, where the dogs are buried, the Spaniards had
- cultivated vineyards, long since gone. One day Reagan brushed
- against the native buckthorn bush, and its berries rubbed off
- on him. Later, when he washed at home, the juice made a lather
- and he figured out that the Spaniards had used the buckthorn
- berries as soap.
- </p>
- <p> As he pulled into the yard Reagan glanced toward his pond. It
- used to be a mudhole, and Reagan and his closest friend, Willard
- Barnett, whom he calls Barney, got a black plastic liner laid
- across the bottom. Barney, 67, is a rugged, silver-haired man
- who used to drive for Reagan when he was Governor and is now
- like a brother. The pond these days is 11 ft. deep and 100 ft.
- long, and Reagan calls it Lake Lucky.
- </p>
- <p> The pond is filled with goldfish he put there, and he likes to
- tell how they grown according to their environment, small in a
- fishbowl and larger in a pond. His are half a foot long and he
- attends them carefully. That afternoon a salt-water bird, a
- gray tern, was circling the fish, and Reagan moved quickly
- toward the pond. Annoyed, he began tossing stones at the bird
- each time it landed on the water but could not scare it off.
- In the past he had come across kingfishers, he said, diving down
- and spearing his fish, but he had never seen a salt-water bird
- here. "Bang! Bang!" he yelled several times, and eventually the
- tern flew back toward the ocean as a satisfied Reagan stared
- upward at its flight.
- </p>
- <p> The next morning Reagan and his wife were at the horse barn by
- 10 o'clock. He likes to ride for a couple of hours each morning
- and work in the afternoon. He saddles the horses himself,
- cleans their hoofs and, in the past, even changed their shoes.
- He climbed up on Little Man, still spirited and shrewd enough
- to open gates with his nose. Reagan had ridden the horse's
- mother in one of his movies, Stallion Road, bought her and later
- bred her. A practiced hunter and jumper, he now restricts
- himself to trail riding. He loves the surprises of the changing
- landscape: trails that suddenly open to sloping meadows or
- pitch through thick, rolling woods.
- </p>
- <p> Nancy Reagan, who is not a relaxed rider, went along on her
- chubby bay named No Strings. They own two other horses, both
- Arabians, a white named Gualianko and a sorrel named Catalina.
- Reagan used to raise thoroughbreds and sell them off as
- yearlings. When he was younger, he had his own system of
- breaking horses, first with a lunge line in the ring, then lying
- stomach-down across their backs, all the time emphasizing verbal
- commands. As he was explaining his approach, he burst into a
- sing-song chant from his cavalry days: "Walk ho-o!" he cried
- out. He was silent for a moment. Then he let loose again: "Tro
- ho-o!" he yelled, as if he were back in a movie at Fort Bravo.
- </p>
- <p> Later, Nancy Reagan came out of the house in jeans and bright
- kerchief, carrying a box of trash. While her husband spends
- most of his time outdoors, usually with tools in his hands, she
- is indoors, talking for long periods of time on the telephone,
- reading, planning. Reagan hates the telephone and is almost
- grateful that Nancy uses it so often. The ranch is plainly her
- concession to her husband. She prefers being around people.
- But time alone with him is worth the remoteness, and she accepts
- it.
- </p>
- <p> Back at the house Reagan talked about the high country.
- Western landscapes filled the rooms, a huge gaucho hat hung on
- a rack, a saddle sat by the wall. "This place has a spell," he
- said, "and people feel it when they come here."
- </p>
- <p> Reagan first felt that spell in 1974, during his final months
- as Governor, when a friend, Bill Wilson, took him to the
- mountain top and the two men rode horseback over the property.
- Reagan wanted it immediately, even though his financial
- advisers warned him off, and he put up $527,000 for the land and
- the ramshackle house (it has since tripled in value).
- </p>
- <p> That fall he tackled his mountain. With Barney and another
- close aide, Dennis Leblanc, he began driving up from Los Angeles
- on weekends, carrying sandwiches in a brown bag, working all day
- and returning that night. They tore off the shabby side porch
- with its metal roof and framed in a large L-shaped veranda, the
- room they use the most now. The mountain air was cold that
- winter, and the fog sometimes so thick they could barely see out
- the windows. The old roof was pulled away and replaced by
- red-brown fiber glass tile. One day the wind was so strong,
- Reagan remembers, that some of the tile and long boards flew out
- of their hands. Inside they laid a red vinyl floor, working in
- the chill with small electric heaters to make the glue stick.
- They set traps trying to kill off the numerous rats and wood
- mice.
- </p>
- <p> Wherever he traveled around the country in 1976, campaigning
- for the nomination against Jerry Ford, Reagan thought about his
- new retreat. In motel rooms he would step off the bedroom and
- bath to get an idea of room dimensions, and on the plane he drew
- floor plan sketches. Often he would return exhausted to Los
- Angeles on a Saturday night, only to leave early the next
- morning for a day at the ranch. He put up a fence made out of
- used telephone poles, carting in the 22-ft lengths and
- chain-sawing them down to 15 ft. for the rails and using the
- remaining 7 ft. for posts. He and Barney put in a sprinkler
- system and hauled in beams that they stained and set across the
- ceilings.
- </p>
- <p> Talking easily, Reagan moved around the house, stopping once
- to point out a painting by Clare Boothe Luce of a smiling lion.
- He took it off the wall to show her inscription on the back,
- turned over the painting and was astonished to find a live bat,
- mouse-size and squirmy, clutching the frame. Reagan poked at
- it with his finger. He recalled another bat that had made its
- way into the house a couple of years earlier. With Nancy
- howling in the background, he and Barney had chased that one
- with a broom and got it out alive. This afternoon Reagan calmly
- took the painting to the door, flicked it and watched the bat
- spread its wings wide and fly off.
- </p>
- <p> In the mornings on the mountain, Reagan wakes up without an
- alarm around 8 o'clock, dresses right away and takes coffee at
- the veranda table. He gets going slowly, sitting in the morning
- sun, eating his breakfast, reading, looking out on the meadow.
- He usually has orange juice, some dry cereal covered with
- fruit, or maybe a couple of soft-boiled eggs prepared by the
- family cook, Ann Allman. By her own account, Nancy has no
- cooking skills.
- </p>
- <p> A big school bell calls Reagan to meals. He is an indifferent
- eater, seldom asking what is to be served, but always finishing
- whatever is on his plate. He likes soups, and the cook often
- freezes his favorite, a spiced hamburger soup, and brings it to
- the ranch. He is also fond of desserts, especially apples and
- ice cream. At the end of the day, he takes only a single drink,
- either a glass of wine or a vodka and tonic. He drinks no
- whisky. He enjoys making popcorn at night and often sits on the
- patio, looking at the stars, which are brilliantly sharp. A
- color TV is located in the living room, and when the Reagans
- listen to music, he likes pieces from the Big Band era. They
- usually fall into their king-size bed sometime after 10 o'clock
- and read themselves to sleep.
- </p>
- <p> As he sat talking about his routine, someone drove up with the
- news that Duke had been found walking along a paved road six
- miles down the mountain. Reagan was elated. Duke, he said,
- will go back in the field near the house. "Just looking out at
- him in that meadow makes me feel better," he said.
- </p>
- <p> Trips to the mountain make him feel younger, and he is always
- reluctant to come down. Reagan wants to keep using the ranch
- as much as possible; Air Force One can land at nearby Vandenberg
- Air Force Base and a chopper can take him to the mountain.
- "I've only got so many years left," he said recently. Then, in
- a rancher's plain-spoken way, he added: "The more I use this
- place, the longer I'll be around."
- </p>
- <p>-- By Robert Ajemian
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-