As if a dress-up character had wandered into a White House event, a man waaaaaaaay in the way back of the press briefing room, his head barely visible through a thicket of reporters, boomed out a question for President Bush. "Should Mel Gibson be forgiven?" asked Sam Donaldson of ABC News, famous for his high-decibel inquisitions of President Ronald Reagan.

Donaldson had returned for a cameo at the final briefing in the famous blue-draped room before it closes for renovations that are supposed to take about nine months. The President rarely drops into the press quarters, but he had made a surprise appearance -- along with First Lady Laura Bush -- at the end of White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's briefing to mark the historic occasion and to banter with reporters. On Thursday, he heads to his ranch for a brief working vacation and the press will begin decamping to temporary quarters outside the White House gates in a building next to Lafayette Park.

Snow brought his children, and someone gave him a celebratory bottle of apple cranberry juice, perfect for brewing that refreshing summer concoction known as the cranflap. (Just add ginger ale.) A young press aide busted out his white bucks. Reporters snapped photos of each other in their dingy seats, many of them broken either from overuse or the surplus of overly ample frames that occupy them.

Back to Mel Gibson. The President smiled as he recognized the far-off voice and toupee, but did not respond quickly enough to suit Donaldson. "Should Mel Gibson be forgiven for claiming that the Jews start all the wars?" the Texas native repeated.

"Is that Sam Donaldson?" the President asked, grinning and drawing laughter. "Forget it! You're a has-been. We don't have to answer has-beens' questions." The press corps responded with a chorus of, "Ohhhhhh!" The President, warming to the impromptu roast, cupped his ear hammily and said, "I can't hear you. I'm over 60, just like you."

"Only Ronald Reagan could get away with that, sir," Donaldson admonished. A din had broken out, a little like a high-school class just before the closing bell rings. Someone pointed out that Helen Thomas, in her customary seat in the front row, had a birthday coming up. "She and Donaldson are about the same age," the President cracked, causing the correspondent to retort that Thomas was his mother. Donaldson is 72. Thomas -- who joined United Press, the future UPI, in 1943 -- will be 86 on Friday.

The theater has been the press room since 1970, when President Richard Nixon had it built over what used to be President Franklin Roosevelt's swimming pool. A trap door in the floor lets visitors look down to see where the pool once was, with the deep end under the press secretary's podium. A buddy of mine got to climb down there after he dropped his cellphone into the void during a tour. It wasn't a ruse but it should have been -- he was treated to a rare view of the White House. When the renovation was announced, reporters of course were paranoid that once they left the West Wing, they'd never be back. Snow joked that he should have brought a swimsuit on the final day, just to tease them. But he promised we'll be back and the President even said, "Looking forward to being here when you kick off the new room. You deserve better than this. I appreciate the relationship with the press." He added, "It's an important relationship."

Snow began the briefing normally, answering questions about the Middle East, Cuba and immigration. Then five former press secretaries came in, and Snow began the wind-up to the President, who had been delayed. The broadcaster in Snow came out and he streeeeeeeetch his remarks, finally confessing, "I'm vamping, as you've probably figured." Then Connie Lawn of USA Radio News, who also files ski reports and calls herself "The Skiing White House Reporter," suggested a round of "Auld Lang Syne." Snow told her to go ahead and the a cappella actually began when luckily the President and the First Lady arrived to spare the C-SPAN audience.

The former press secretaries were:

--Joe Lockhart, who served President Bill Clinton, joked to Bush that the audience was "some of the same crowd" that had tortured him.

--Dee Dee Myers, Clinton's first press secretary, offered some important perspective about the press room when she said afterward, "The first thing people say when they take a White House tour is, 'Boy, it's so small and it's kind of a dump.' It IS still in the West Wing of the White House.'

--Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary to President George H.W. Bush, noted that over about the last 10 years, the White House had become "the communications center of the world," with so many momentous events announced or explained at the podium.

--James Brady, who was injured in the assassination attempt on Reagan, came in his wheelchair with his wife Sarah and said that his best memory of the room -- which was officially named the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on Feb. 11, 2000 -- was when his wife, Sarah Brady, who accompanied him onstage, used to drop by for lunch.

--Ron Nessen, who had to defend Nixon and is now journalist in residence at the Brookings Institution, marveled at Snow's sense of humor, saying, "I had a thin skin. I had a short temper."

A small sample of Snow's light approach came during the good-bye briefing. When someone asked Snow if the new briefing room would bring better answers, his riposte was: "In response to better questions."