I wasn't there in 1947 when Gov. Strom Thurmond, 44, made headlines by standing on his head for a Life magazine photographer. I was there in 1978 when U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, 75, facing his toughest re-election challenge in memory, slid down a fire pole in a Columbia firehouse, not just once, but three times, to show just how fit he still really was.

For me, it was one of those day-in-the-life-of-a-candidate stories that reporters do during political campaigns. But it wasn't just any campaign. Strom Thurmond was being seriously challenged by Charles D. "Pug" Ravenel, a former Democratic gubernatorial nominee who four years earlier had lost his place on the ballot in a court challenge.

The senator had temporarily moved Nancy and his four young children from Aiken to the state capital, a more central location for the campaign. That day's schedule began with an 8 a.m. radio talk show and ended that night at a Masonic Lodge "ladies night" in his hometown of Edgefield.

The press trailed Strom for much of the day. Nationally syndicated columnists were among the questioners at a press conference. Photographers clicked away at the State Fair and some reporters even went along to hear what he had to say at the Law School. But few expected anything newsworthy out of his late afternoon visit to a fire station where 6-year-old Strom Jr. was having a birthday party.

The senator was among those who donned a red plastic fireman's hat and went on a tour of the second floor. Suddenly, without warning, Strom decided to follow the firemen right down the pole. What a shot! But our photographer had taken a break. Could the senator be persuaded to repeat his feat for the camera? You bet. But his hands were in front of his face. Would he do it again? Of course. He even stopped midway down the pole to make sure his face clearly was in view.

It was the kind of muscle-flexing that seemed to say, "there take that," to Ravenel, a trim, 40-year-old former college athlete. The senator wound up with 56 percent of the vote. After his defeat, Ravenel reflected that asking people to vote against Strom was like asking them to cut down the Palmetto tree. No way they were going to do that. The last to learn that lesson was challenger Elliott Close in 1996.

By the time I started covered politics in the early 1960s, Strom Thurmond's segregationist days were fading away. Instead of being a marginalized third-party candidate, he was on his way to becoming a presidential kingmaker and black mayors like Charles Ross of Lincolnville counted on Strom Thurmond just as much as their white counterparts.

I remember well how at age 66 he set the state abuzz with the announcement that he would marry the 22-year-old former Miss South Carolina, Nancy Moore. I happened to be in Washington on the day, two years later, when his office announced that the Thurmonds were expecting their first child. The staff couldn't answer the telephones fast enough and the good-natured joking about his sexual prowess continued until the last of his children was born when he was 73.

One of my indelible memories of the senator was a tender scene between father and youngest son on the floor of a Republican National Convention. I can still see him on his father's knees, arms around his neck, listening to his soothing words. And then there was the 1988 New Orleans convention when the frugal Thurmond declined to stay at the hotel designated for the South Carolina delegation. He needed four rooms. At nearly $200 per night, it was too pricey. Instead, he, Nancy and the children went to a Days Inn.

The oldest of the children, Nancy Moore, would die tragically in the spring of 1993 when struck by a drunk driver. A former aide has told me of the depths of the grief the senator suffered at the hospital that evening and of the difficulty he had in accepting that she couldn't be saved. His anguish was still obvious when he came here a few weeks later for the hearings on the closing of the Charleston Naval Base. Other politicians slipped in and out of the all-day hearing. But not Strom. He stayed put. On the front row. That was his duty.

Before his last campaign, there was much talk about how impaired he'd become and how skillful his staff had been in keeping him away from the press. But our interview with the senator told a different story. He answered all the editorial staff's questions, clearly and without hesitation. That did change fairly dramatically in his final years. But he continued, to the end, to do his duty, even after his 100th birthday, staying on in Washington until his successor actually took the oath of office this past January.

Like the thousands who had their fond, personal memories of the man who set national records for age and longevity in the U.S. Senate, I had to be there yesterday for the final tributes he had earned from the citizens of his state and the leaders of the nation. I was reminded during the drive to the Edgefield cemetery of that automobile ride with him to his hometown all those years ago. He sat up front with an aide, overhead light on, doing paperwork. From time to time, he'd pass along something he thought I might like to see.

I asked him whether he planned to take some time off after the race was over. He seemed surprised that I thought he might need a vacation. He was doing what gave him the greatest satisfaction. And he would continue to do so for another quarter-century.

Barbara S. Williams is editor of The Post and Courier.