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WHENEVER WE got to the ranch, things were always a bit more relaxed. Still, I was mindful of the fact that he was the President and I was a Secret Service agent. I would always remember that. The Secret Service did all it could to make certain the President and First Lady still felt their ranch was a private place for them—a retreat. They installed the security in such a way that the Reagans would not hear or see all the mechanisms that had been put in place to protect them. Although the President knew it was all there, he would never complain that there were too many people around, as some other presidents have done.
One reason the ranch seemed worlds away from the White House is that while we were there, the President never talked to me about anything related to what was going on in Washington, D.C. Even though he shouldered some of the burdens of the world, he was always able to see and enjoy some of the great gifts of life. While riding, he would talk to me about the scenery. He’d say “This is what it’s all about. Look at that tree. Look at those yellow poppy flowers. Those are the state flowers, John. That’s Santa Rosa Island out there, John.”
He was always looking for places along the path where he needed to clear some brush. He would tell me to look at the bottom of the oak trees. “John, if I clear that up, the yellow poppies will thrive. They aren’t growing because they can’t get the sunlight. That’s why Mother Nature allows fires, because they clean out the fields.” After he cleaned out the bottom of the trees, everything did look healthier.
“John, see how the sunlight touches the trees,” he’d say, “and notice how the mighty oak tree bends but doesn’t break. Just hear that wind blow.”
One time when we saw a gopher snake, he told me that he wanted them around. “There goes a gopher snake, John. You don’t have the fellows kill them, do you?”
“No, sir,” I reassured him.
“That’s good, because they are good, friendly snakes that keep the gopher population under control. Now if there is a rattlesnake, well, that is a different story.”
He loved being able to say what direction we were going. That was how I knew the ranch so well. At the beginning, I wouldn’t know where we were or what direction we were facing. The President would say, “We’re going to the northeast corner of the ranch, and when we get to that part, I want to go north.”
“Is that right or left?” I would ask.
One of the first things the President noticed was that the other agents weren’t as comfortable around the horses as I was. True horsemen relax around their horses. The President also appreciated that, like him, I rode English. There were always four agents, including me, on horses when the President went riding. The other three rode Western. The Secret Service gave me the authority to purchase four Western saddles from Si Jenkins. They were Woffards—a good, basic leather saddle. With this type of saddle, they could carry gear with them. On an English saddle, you can’t carry much gear. I didn’t want to, because the agents around a president aren’t going to stand and fight it out. If something did happen, we would’ve covered him with our bodies and evacuated. We’d practice and practice that repeatedly.
Another thing the President liked was the way I tied horses. Everybody has a way of tying, and I use a slipknot. To tie this knot, you take the lead rope and you put it over the hitching post. You then bring the lead rope underneath the hitching post. Next you take your right hand, grasp the bottom lead rope knuckles up, and then with the lead rope in hand, you rotate it until your knuckles are facing the ground. Finally, you take the tip of the lead rope and twist it and pull it through until it tightens. If there is a problem, the horse usually can’t get out of it, and if you tie the knot properly, all you have to do to release the horse is pull on it.
There is one thing you never do: tie a horse by the reins, which certain people did up at the ranch. You just don’t do that. I can recall the time one of the military aides wrapped his reins around the hitching post. I’m not picking on the military aides, because some of them have been my fast, longtime friends, but every good horseman knows that you never tie a horse by the reins. Anyway, when this happened, the President looked at the reins and then he looked at me, never saying a word. I walked over, undid the reins, and put the halter lead rope on the hitching post the way it was supposed to be. He just gave me a nod and a smile. The military aide acted like, what’s going on? but not a word was said.
Besides the First Lady, no one else at the ranch had ridden with him before. One time some friends came up, the Jorgensons, and they rode with him, but that never happened again. He almost always had ridden alone, but now he had me, and he liked that. I once tried to get Dennis Le Blanc to go riding. He was the California State Police Officer who had been on Reagan’s protective detail while he was governor, and he was at the White House for a while. He always came to the ranch to cut wood with the President. I said, “Dennis, why don’t you ride with us? I’ll tack up a horse for you.”
“No, John, no. I chop wood with him. I don’t ride horses with him.”
In the beginning, the President and I would ride for two or two-and-a-half hours and sometimes twice a day when we were at the ranch. At Camp David, we would go twice a day for the same length of time. Unfortunately, that became too time consuming for him. He had work to do, but at the ranch, most of his official business was “homework,” so that left him more time to ride.
3
The Rider and His Ranch
Reagan called it his open cathedral in the sky: majestic hills rising out of the dusty ground high above the Santa Ynez Valley, strong and beautiful oak trees with twisted trunks overlooking incredible vistas of the Pacific Ocean, and rugged backcountry with endless trails. Though his humble ranch was far from majestic, the natural beauty visible from the 2,250-foot-high mountaintop made him feel like he was on top of the world.
As he often put it, “Rancho del Cielo can make you feel as if you are on a cloud.” It was simple and comfortable, embodying the character of a leader who has become a hero to many. The principles he esteemed were constant throughout his life—hope, simplicity, hard work, and optimism—and he walked and rode Rancho del Cielo with those same guiding values.
The Reagans purchased the ranch in November 1974. The name of the property at the time was Tip Top Ranch. That would never work. This place on the side of the mountain was so much more to them than that. They renamed their new property Rancho del Cielo (Spanish for “Ranch in the Sky”). Twenty-nine miles northwest of Santa Barbara, it was their escape from Washington, D.C., from their aides, and from the many people constantly tugging at them. In all my years in the Secret Service, I never really heard the President complain about his schedule, but there was one exception. Every once in a while, he would turn to his chief of staff, Michael Deaver, and say, “Mike, the schedule looks fine, but I don’t see any ranch time in here. I don’t see a ranch trip in the schedule.”
Like all other presidents, he still had to carry the weighty burdens of that office with him, but at least at the ranch, he was in the place where he felt most comfortable. While riding his horse on the endless trails of his 688 acres, he could be alone with his thoughts and nature. When we were at the White House, I’d be on post, and he’d come by and say to me while grabbing and shaking his lapel, “Well, John, in four days we can get out of these clothes, get in some boots and jeans, and we’ll be riding.”
For most of his adult life, Reagan owned a ranch somewhere in California. From his childhood days on, Reagan had looked to nature for solace and strength, and he would retreat to the wonderment of the outdoors whenever he needed to sort things out and make decisions.
None of his ranches were palatial. They were always like him—simple, rugged, and sturdy. When people first got a glimpse of Rancho del Cielo, they were surprised. When the last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, saw the tiny adobe home in 1992, I could see how stunned he was. Of course, the point was Reagan bought the place because it was simple. On the wall of his small adobe home, the President had a plaque he prized greatly, with a quote from Horatio’s The Bridge: “How can a man die better