It’s funny how at 70 one can remember the highlights of one’s life as if they happened yesterday.  Very few things in my life are special to me, but boarding Air Force One back during the Nixon administration is one of those special event.

For a short time I was the editor of the Andrews Air Force Base newspaper, The Gateway.  While publishing that paper, I received permission to do a piece about the air craft  Air Force One, and what impact a new President has upon it.  Did you know that each new President can decorate the inside of his plane any way he/she wants?

Well, Nixon redid the entire interior of Air Force One.  At the time I wrote the piece I also took pictures of it, inside and out.  I also knew how much it costs the taxpayers to have this work done.  I don’t remember that particular number, but it was a lot.

While on board, the crew let me SIT on the President’s bed!!  How many people can say that???  The bed spread or coverlet on the bed at the time was a dark blue with the Presidential Seal of the United States in the middle of it.  

There is a section for the press corp on the plane, also.  There are all kinds of instruments that are visible outside the cockpit.  I don’t know what they were, but they were impressive.

 I really enjoyed my work as editor of the Gateway.  At the time, I was a widow of an Air Force S Sgt. who had been stationed at Andrews.  I also volunteered in the hospital there to make phone calls for the returning Viet Nam vets. Andrews AFB will always have a part of my heart.

God Bless.