It happens only on the rarest of occasions. But there have been moments when the Oval Office is truly between its masters.

And I have been there, standing alone in the Oval Office doorway, on two occasions — precisely at noon, on two of those few quadrennial Inauguration Days when the United States has been peacefully transferring the power of the presidency from one political party to another.

It was an assignment I gave myself, back on January 20th of 1977 and 1981. Because, back in that more innocent era, I wanted to witness just whatever there was that could be seen or felt when the Oval Office was between its presidents. Those were the moments when that gleaming white oval-shaped room we egocentrically considered the center of global power and influence was being empowered only by the constitutional spirit that — and we felt sure of this! — fuels the world's greatest democracy.

And now we aren't even sure about that. Today, our nation's capital doesn't look or feel like the capital of a great democracy. It looks and feels more like we are trapped inside the military fortressed, steel-fenced, barbed-wired Green Zone that our experts designed to protect a trembling Baghdad from being overrun by its own homegrown terrorists. Because that's just what we saw happen to our Capitol.

But now, I thought we might want to shift our time machine into reverse and revisit those gentler days, when America peacefully transferred the power of its presidency from the Republican Nixon-Ford years to the presidency of Democrat Jimmy Carter. And then when we peacefully transferred the Oval Office from Carter to Ronald Reagan.

It is noon, Jan. 20, 1977: The most striking thing about the Oval Office at this moment is its stunning silence and sheer beauty. This is, after all, where we recently heard Richard Nixon plotting his Watergate criminal cover-up. I'm looking at the ornate desk where Jerry Ford had just pardoned his boss. I wouldn't have been there except for the help of Ford's decent, even-handed chief of staff — yes, young Dick Cheney. But now this place of dark deeds gleams from a noontime sun that glistens off the Rose Garden's meringue-like snowy glaze that pours through the doors and tall windows. The surreal brilliance of the silent Oval Office belies the notion that this was ever a place of dark deeds. From a TV down the hall, I hear the new tenant's voice:

"I, Jimmy Carter, do solemnly swear …"

A side door opens and Nell Yates, a secretary who has been working there since Eisenhower, walks in, glances at Jerry Ford's old wooden desk; it is bare except for two long stemmed pens. She shakes her head, leaves and returns with books that she places at the desk's front left corner, shifting them until they are just right. They are three volumes of Alexander Hamilton's bound papers, two volumes of "Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters." But what they are didn't matter; getting rid of the desk's uninviting bareness is what mattered. "At least now it makes you want to come in and do some work," she explains.

Carter, being all about de-pomping Nixon's imperial presidency, had made no plans for how his Oval Office had to look.

It is noon, Jan. 20, 1981: Dominador T. Julian, who had been there since Ike, is polishing the brass door knob. He has removed all the paper President Carter had been working on up until the last hours of his presidency as he tried to get those Americans held hostage in Iran released before his time was up. Now Julian is listening to the same TV Carter was monitoring as he worked up until his time was up; and he hears the voice of the new man.

"I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear …"

Suddenly the semi-silence of the Oval Office is shattered by an explosion of working men in suits. Moving in precision, John Rogers and his four assistants pivot two sofas, shift two tables and slide the huge globe. In the Cabinet Room, they remove paintings of Jefferson and Truman, hang Eisenhower and Coolidge. Lincoln stays.

Reagan is all about re-pomping the presidency. Joseph Morris, a White House painter, ever-anxious to please his new bosses, slipped on his work pants and slipped into the Oval Office for a quick touch-up. But the new guys may not have been too pleased to notice he forgot to take off the big green-and-white Carter/Mondale button he left on his coveralls.

Those were days when the Ford guys and Carter guys and Reagan guys could laugh at things like that. Days when protesters were protesting — not terrorizing, smashing and bashing our police protectors and our Capitol that is the House of the People.

Here's hoping our time machine can help Joe Biden, Liz Cheney and all of us go back and recover the lost decency we have left behind.

Martin Schram, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, is a veteran Washington journalist, author and TV documentary executive. Readers may send him e-mail at martin.schram@gmail.com.