I was a cub reporter at The Day way back in November 1980, when I was dispatched to cover former President Richard Nixon on an almost secret visit — word leaked out he was here — to take a submarine ride with Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy.

I caught up with Nixon as the former president was about to board a helicopter at Groton-New London Airport, after his night patrol aboard the Submarine Cincinnati.

He took a detour of about 50 feet to shake hands with a dozen people who had gathered behind a chain link fence to see him.

"He smiled and said he enjoyed the ride aboard the Cincinnati," I wrote then. "He shrugged his shoulders when asked how he liked the brisk New England weather."

I don't remember any of it today. But I cringe to think it might have been me who asked the disgraced former president about the weather. I hope not.

Other presidential visits to the region — and there have been a lot of them, thanks to the Coast Guard Academy and its regular commencement-speaking invitations to presidents — and most have involved a lot more pomp than the time a former president popped in and out.

I found my account of the Nixon visit while poking through yellowed news clippings, a search begun when I read that competing demonstrations are planned for President Donald Trump's commencement visit later this month.

It certainly won't be the first time well-wishers have turned out to wave and welcome. Nor will it be the first time for protests of a president's policies.

If sign-carrying protesters turned out to complain about President Barack Obama's health care policies, imagine what we will get with a president fresh from his campaign to cut the health care coverage of millions of Americans, some from around here.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke twice at the academy, inspired a small protest that resulted in the arrest of the chairman of the Waterford Board of Education, who worked at Connecticut College.

The Day reported in 2015 that the Secret Service showed some interest in some signs put up by a delegation of protesters from radio station 94.9 that included station owner John Fuller.

One of the signs said: "Obama Bin Lyin." I suspect they won't be back this year, with a logical segue: "Trump Bin Lyin Bout Obama Wiretaps."

Some commencement speakers have widened their itineraries while here.

Ronald Reagan had lunch aboard a Coast Guard cutter at Fort Trumbull. The Day ran a picture of his big old presidential limousine lumbering around the corner off Bank Street onto State, the downtown sidewalks lined with a smattering of well-wishers.

Schoolchildren were ushered out to wave at Bill Clinton.

Cheney had lunch aboard a submarine.

Some of the presidents have made news here. Others seemed to set out more to inspire cadets than speak to the world.

Cheney defended torture, in the face of a growing terrorist threat. Reagan suggested the death penalty for certain drug dealers. Clinton warned about AIDS. Obama warned of the dangers of climate change, a message we certainly won't hear this month.

George W. Bush revealed newly declassified information in 2007 that he said showed new ties between Osama Bin Laden and Iraq before the Sept. 11 attacks, another clumsy attempt to manufacture justification for his unnecessary war.

"We're living in the eye of a storm," Bush told the graduates that day. "All around us, dangerous winds are swirling and these winds could reach our shores at any moment. The men and women of the Coast Guard know how to navigate the storm."

That's a message so dark it might have come out of Trump's Republican National Convention last summer. It differed from Reagan's in that that he specifically included women leaders of the Coast Guard.

I think maybe the most inspiring address for cadets came from Reagan, the great communicator. He told the story of a daring Coast Guard rescue of the crew of a Russian ship sinking in the stormy Atlantic off the New Jersey coast.

"Three helicopters came to the rescue," Reagan recalled. "The fuel was low. There was little time. And despite screaming winds and pitching seas, each helicopter managed to hover in turn above the ship's heaving deck.

"It is one of the most dramatic rescues in Coast Guard history and a heroic demonstration of what we mean when we say the Coast Guard is an 'armed service and more.'"

They should have a video of that to exhibit in New London's new National Coast Guard Museum.

It was especially inspiring because the president made the day about the cadets and not himself.

I doubt we are going to see that for the presidential address at this year's commencement.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com