I knew Dick Cheney. I worked with Dick Cheney. He was no Darth Vader.

Barbara A. Perry is the J. Wilson Newman Professor in Presidential Studies at UVA’s Miller Center, where she co-chairs the Presidential Oral History Project.

I’ll admit at the outset that I didn’t always share Vice President Dick Cheney’s ideology or policies. And I wish I had a nickel for every person who thought they were making a clever joke about his hunting prowess when they advised me to wear blaze orange when they heard my colleagues and I were going to interview him for the Miller Center’s George W. Bush Presidential Oral History Project.

One colleague snarked that he “would rather be dead than be in the same room with Dick Cheney.” Well, he missed the interview of a career in oral history. You see, here at UVA, we have interviewed the senior officials for all presidencies (and sometime presidents themselves) starting with the Gerald Ford administration. Without fear or favor, as they say in the law, we take a nonpartisan approach to all presidents and their appointees. You’d be surprised to hear what we learn by being balanced in our approach. And, by posing objective questions, we also gain candid observations from those who were “in the room” (often the Oval Office).

The late vice president was part of our Ford and Bush 41 projects, and we look forward to releasing his Bush 43 interviews when they are processed.

What I will always remember about him was how he welcomed us, an interview team of four political scientists, to his Jackson Wyoming home in June 2014. He was still recovering from his heart transplant, so his daughter, Liz, alerted us to arrive at 9 AM and leave by noon each day. But when the clock struck 12 PM and we started to depart, the vice president called out for sandwiches and we continued chatting for another two hours.

All together, we captured twenty-five hours of the most riveting material that will inform generations to come of his vice-presidential tenure.

My favorite memories will be two personal ones. The vice president was so proud to tell us that he drove his granddaughter’s horse to the rodeo each week for her to compete in barrel racing. I literally attended my first rodeo and cheered heartily for Grace Perry (Liz Cheney’s daughter). You should have seen the smile on the VP’s face the next day when I shared that experience.

After we completed day five, we prepared to make our final exit with a round of photos on the Cheney’s patio. Decades before, the future Veep had nearly became a political scientist. He completed all the course work, published an article in the American Political Science Review (the premier journal of the discipline) with his University of Wisconsin mentor, and then decided not to write a dissertation. Instead, the siren call of the nation’s capital lured him. He practiced politics rather than taught it.

I had printed his co-authored APSR article, read it on the plane to Wyoming, and asked if he would sign it for me. “What’d ya think of it?”, he queried in that soft monotone. “Frankly, sir, I didn’t understand a word of it!”, I admitted. It was too mathematical. With that, he produced a hearty laugh that proved to me once more that, even in fraught political eras, we can still find common ground.