White House Diaries

Saturday, August 28, 1982

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Phoenix for the sad occasion—a short but moving service then back to Deedee at the house. Many friends were there. I overnighted and then left for Calif. & straight to the ranch. Nancy followed & arrived about 6 P.M. Except for a trip into L.A. (Mon. & Tues.) to do 2 fund raisers—one for Duekmejian (Gov.) and Pete W. (Sen.) and a private dinner at the Jorgensons it was ranch time. One fundraiser Dukes was a reception—Petes a dinner in W. clothes. For 2 weeks then it was riding every morning but one (had to do a radio script) and in the afternoon a dozen projects; Moving furniture into the new guest house—building a fence around it etc. Had a wild few days when hundreds of gold fish died—lack of oxygen. We must have buried 300 as well as hundreds of mosquito fish. I didn’t know a dozen of them could multiply that much. They died because there wasn’t enough Oxygen left in the Lake to support that many. Broke the stay at the ranch for a couple of hours to fly into Burbank & broadcast (T.V.) the speech on the Middle East. It kicked up quite a wave. No question about it being a success even though P.M. Begin & his cabinet felt they had to oppose it. The Wilsons came up—we rode & they were the 1st guests in the new quarters. It was fun. Maureen & Dennis came up just for dinner. It was really a wonderful time and really relaxing. We didn’t have that hurried feeling we have when we only have a couple of days. Now it is Tues. Sept. 7 we’ve just finished a reception & awarding Phil Habib a Medal of Freedom. We brought Mrs. Habib from Calif. with us—she hadn’t seen him for 3 1⁄2 months.