At 9 p.m. EST on March 26, 1954 – a week before I was born – the CBS anthology series “Schlitz Playhouse” presented a 30-minute drama entitled “The Edge of Battle.” It’s the story of a troubled GI who’s holding an Army lieutenant captive.

I don’t know if my Mom, who loved ’50s anthology series, or my Dad were watching. But I would have liked seeing the look on their face if someone told them that the guy playing the captive Lt. Paul Random would – 30 years later – be seeking a second term as the 40th President of the United States.

My parents knew who Ronald Reagan was. He was one of those actors in a lot of B-movies and TV melodramas. His big role was as doomed football player George Gipp in “Knute Rockne: All American” just before World War II.

My Mom might have known that Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild. I’m not sure she would have known that he had given the FBI a list of actors he believed had Communist leanings during the blacklist period. Being up on such things, she might have known that Reagan was on his second marriage, having divorced actress Jane Wyman and married lesser known actress Nancy Davis.

The first question my parents might have asked, once they were convinced you weren’t pulling their leg, would be for what party did Reagan head the ticket. He strongly backed Franklin D. Roosevelt. But like a lot of Democrats, he supported Dwight Eisenhower in his 1952 campaign.

My mother, a loyal Democrat, would grow to hate Reagan and his presidency. She came to admire Jimmy Carter and felt Reagan maligned a great man – an unpopular view even in liberal circles on Long Island. My father had a hard time taking him seriously – Reagan played a louse in some of these dramas and that sometimes would color Dad’s view of a person.

And, in 1954, I’m not sure even Ronald Reagan imagined what he’d be doing in exactly 30 years. My parents wouldn’t have been alone.