On Ronald Reagan's death

As you all know, Ronald Reagan died this weekend. At first, I wasn't planning on mentioning it here. There are dozens of excellent discussions of President Reagan and his legacy to be found. Just go through my blogroll. (I personally recommend Mark Steyn's) But then I got to thinking a little bit, and I decided that, rather than try to assess the President's political legacy, which I am hopelessly unqualified to do, I would tell you some of how he, or at least a mythical version of him, affected my life.
First, some background for those of you who don't know me. I grew up in the liberal Jewish Community of liberal Massachusetts. I was my high school class' token conservative. As an example of what that meant to my friends, three of us had a kind of fake band, Radioactive Toupee. We played one song, the Gospel tune "This Little Light of Mine." One of played guitar and sang the line "This little light of mine." The second guy would then sing, in his best Barry White impression, "I'm gonna let it shine." This would go on until we got bored. My job was to ramble on about the Reagan Presidency in the background the whole time. That is how, to a degree, I was looked at in high school.
I was 5 years old when Reagan left office, so I don't have any meaningful memories of him when he was President. But my father idealized him. I grew up hearing about how great he was, how he single handedly defeated the communists, how he, unlike other presidents we've had since, had integrity. And this, I think, is one of his greatest legacies. He left us with a symbol of what politics can be, and of what politicians are capable of. He affected the American people so positively. Even his great opponents, those who hated him and still do, should be able to recognize this. Historians will debate how Reagan and his policies changed America and the world, whether they were for good or ill. But I hope that the positive stamp that Reagan's way of conducting politics left on us never goes away.