It’s something I still regret.

In my newspaper career, I have seen three United States presidents and one vice president - actually, two.

The three presidents I’ve seen are Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and  George H.W. Bush. The vice president was Dan Quayle. None of the presidents I saw were in office at the time, one had served out his term while the other two had yet to be elected. Quayle, however, was still in office.

I saw Quayle when he gave a speech on the courthouse lawn in Oregon during his last year in office. I can’t remember now if he was campaigning or simply visiting the area. The thing that struck me the most was the lack of secret service agents guarding him, although I assume there were many blending in with the crowd.

I saw Reagan give a speech in the Dixon High School gym, about five years after his presidency had ended. I’ll never forget it because it was such an erratic speech. He would start telling a story, then interrupt himself to delve into something else that had absolutely nothing to do with his story, then eventually he would return to the story. I couldn’t get over the fact that this guy was, at one time, the most powerful man in the world and he couldn’t stick to a simple story.

I saw Obama give a speech in the basement of the Sycamore Public Library a few months after he had been elected to the U.S. Senate. Despite his claim that he was only interested in the senate, it was clear he had his sights set on higher office.

And then there’s Bush.

It was St. Patrick’s Day one year. As the editor of the Ogle County Life at the time, and since there was nothing going on locally, I decided to slip up to Rockford to get a few pictures for my paper.

I was standing by the barricade on State Street somewhere, near where the parade was congregating, when I saw Lynn Martin. Martin was in her last term as Congresswoman for our district, when she spotted me and waived. I had only talked to her a few times, but - in true political fashion - she never forgot a local reporter.

I stood there for a few minutes and was starting to leave when I noticed this very tall, lanky fellow standing off to himself. It was Bush. He was reading something. Again, I couldn’t get over the fact there didn’t seem to be any security around him, but I have a hunch there would have been if I had tried to approach him.

Bush was vice president under Reagan at the time and was running for the Republican nomination for president, which he won.

I was kind of dumb struck for a moment, not by him so much but because I had never seen a vice president before. It wasn’t until I was driving home that it dawned on me I should have asked Lynn if I could get a picture of her and Bush together, maybe even talk to him for a minute. The two were close friends. Besides her serving as his midwestern campaign manager, Bush appointed Lynn as U.S. Secretary of Labor after he was elected president.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to interview an Illinois governor (Jim Edgar), a U.S. senator (Paul Simon), two U.S. congressmen (Martin and Don Manzullo) and a presidential candidate (John B. Anderson), but never a real life United States president.

And I still regret it.

The truth is I don’t know if Mr. Bush, who passed away recently, would have talked to me or not, but by not trying I’ll never know. I guess that’s the point to this whole thing. We don’t know what we can do, or what can happen to us, unless we try.